Imagine if you will, a dimension of time locked metal. Where mixtures and combinations of influence from some of the genre’s most elite come together in a controlled cacophony of extreme, old school, aural majesticness. Have you just crossed over into a heavy metal Twilight Zone? Hell no friends! You’ve just stumbled upon another terrific metal find, via the guys at Unspeakable Axe Records.

Chile’s Ripper is the real deal folks, and Experiment of Existence is plain and simple, a damn near perfectly crafted album. Okay, maybe perfect is going a little too far but I’ll be damned if Experiment of Existence isn’t a fun, thrashing rager of an album reeking of old school fury and honestly, doesn’t disappoint throughout any of its eleven tracks. Blending the sounds of Death, Possessed, Dark Angel, Morbid Angel, Sepultura, and Kreator, Ripper offers up a dirty and evil, audible thrashing of death metal from yesteryear with a nice progressive flair, and a bassist that plays like a madman. The best description to Ripper‘s music that I can come up with is to imagine Chuck Schuldiner (Death), Trey Azagthoth (Morbid Angel), the Cavalera brothers (Sepultura), and Roger Patterson (Atheist), Alex Webster (Cannibal Corpse), and D.D. Verni (Overkill), getting together in 1991to create metal bliss.

I’m not even going to bother breaking down the majority of the album’s material, as all of it is a winner, and worth your time for a listen or two (or 25). From the catchy death thrash of opener “Magnetic Solar Storms”, to the progressive flair of Schuldiner/Death mannerisms and pacings of “Anthropophagic Life”, “Experiment of Existence”, and “Rotten Dreams”, or the Beneath the Remains/Altars of Madness/Piece of Time infusions of “The Alpha Orionis”, “Neuronal Unity”, and “Spherical Energy”. Hell, I even catch a little Slayer vibe too, especially in “Humanity Was Wrong”. Ripper have done a great job with Experiment of Existence. The album is a definite barn burner,with a clean , yet still dirty enough production that fits the music well. All of the band’s members deserve some kudos for their performances, especially for coming across so genuinely true to the old school, while blazing forward with it’s aural death, but I have to say, it’s bassist, Pablo Cortes who really ends up stealing the show. His performance and tone are simply ripping…(see what I did there?) The man is like a conglomeration of  Webster, Patterson, Verni, Harris, DiGiorgio, and what other badasses of bass that you can think of. Just listen to the bass solo/instrumental, “Chromatic Fantasy” and try not to have either a shit eating grin on your face, or your entire jaw dropping repeatedly to the floor. It’s like listening to Nuno Bettencourt (Extreme) molesting his fretboard, but it’s a bass! I freaking love it!

Ripper is the type of band that most well rounded extreme metal fans can find more than a few merits in. Like I said earlier, Experiments of Existence is damn near a perfectly crafted album. Though there is nothing really pushing the envelope of metal’s boundaries, or essentially anything that is going to be new and/or surprising to a metal veteran’s ears, the feeling of excitement, the rush of adrenaline, the urge to fist-pump and headbang with a smile stretched from ear to ear, is heavily evoked with Experiments of Existence, and that is sometimes all you need to achieve a high caliber, quality album. I don’t know where Unspeakable Axe keeps finding so many great bands that can pay homage to some of metal’s gone-by-years, while maintaining a current relevance, but I for one, am mighty thankful that they are.

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