This is one weird little album. The band is basically the comeback vehicle for Patrick Mameli who undertook voluntary musical exile after the mauling that Pestilence’s fourth and last album Spheres took at the hands of critics and fans. That was a good 13 years ago and surprisingly, in today’s musical climate Spheres sounds pretty damn good. It’s also been quite influential on the current crop of technical extreme metal bands. That though, is Pestilence and what may or may not be a Kvlt classic. What’s C 187 all about ? 

Well, for starters it has Tony Choy on bass and Sein Reinert on drums. Now, before you start to salivate at the prospect of a tech death wankathon, let me warn you…. Collision is a very different beast. 

I don’t really know what you’d call this music. There’s bits of thrash, some Dillinger Escape Plan style technical skullduggery, Meshuggah style riffing and some jaw dropping playing from the trio. I think Mameli wanted to come back with an album that sounded current. Somehow by the time Choy and Reinert got their hand on the songs, things took a different path and got way more technical. Almost all of the songs on this album have that whole jump-core element but the musicianship is of such a high standard that somehow it works. It also helps that the songs are pretty short and trimmed of all unwanted fat. Still, the one thing that makes this album work for me is the riffs. Sure, that dissonant staccato riffing that’s so fucking popular these days is there but there are also a lot of grooves. Right through the album, when this band hit on a groove they lock in tight and fucking murder. Imagine Meshuggah with shorter, groovier songs and you’ll get a sense of what this band is doing. 

The album really grabs you in the first four songs. Right here, you’ll know if you love this or hate this. Collision, Cruisin’ 4 A Bruisin’ (pay attention to Choy’s stunning bass playing on this song), Roadblock and Drugged and Mugged all follow the same format in that they’re short, jumpy and have some insane playing. There isn’t really any rap in the vocals but the clean sung parts are quite bad and generally the vocalist has an irritating tendency of repeating the song name 3-4 times in a very jump da fuck up style. Case in point being the song Murda which has a horrible “Murda! Murda! Murda!” shouty bit that’s pretty fucking bad. 

Apart from this one complaint though, the album is pretty good. Mameli, Choy and Reinert are playing at the top of their game and sound quite terrific. Tony Choy’s bass playing (particularly on Cruisin’ 4 A Bruisin’) is spectacular. Mameli is largely restrained and focuses on providing some kickass riffs while holding back on the jazz noodling. Even his lead guitar playing is quite restrained. Reinert is as solid as ever and forms an insanely tight tag team with Choy. 

I think this is one of those love it or hate it bands. If you can get past the jumpy vocal lines and Chimera meets Meshuggah type heaviness you’ll be left awestruck by the musical virtuosity of this band. If you can’t get past the shitty vocals and jumpy riffs, you’ll hate this band. 

Label – Mascot
Year of Release – 2007