Pestilence - Live at Dynamo Open Air
Review: Plunging into the network of time, we can see 1992 as a nodal point for death metal, which was just reaching its peak without yet incurring the dissent and neurotic confusion that comes from the introspective external comparison which successful things encounter once they have surpassed initial barriers and must define themselves not in reaction to stimulus, but as reflections on themselves and whatever positive -- meaning goal, not reaction -- aims they have set for themselves.
This time found Pestilence in camouflaged crisis as their desire to be more musical drove them into conventional rhythm and harmony, lessening the impact of their music and threatening to revert it to glorified speed metal. Just a year past releasing Testimony of the Ancients, Pestilence were attempting to transition into a style of music that got more respect for musicality and probably, wider distribution than death metal. As a result, they play their older material more aggressively but with more emphasis on edged and muffled strumming, making it into a form of technical speed metal toward which they also bend their newer material, accelerating it and giving it a similar edge.
1. Dehydrated (3:30)
2. Chemotherapy (4:27) 
3. Presence of the dead (5:54)
4. The process of suffocation (3:17)
5. Lost souls (4:06)
6. Twisted truth (4:25)
7. Testimony (4:29)
8. Chronic infection (3:58)
9. Stigmatized (5:25)
10. Out of the body (5:08)
To their credit, Pestilence play an energetic and technically accurate show with an even split between Testimony of the Ancients and their older work, massaging both groups toward a mean that sounds more adapted to the faster, melodic technical music that was emerging in the wake of speed metal's final years. Much of the technique of current power metal can be absorbed from this demanding but bouncy set, and we can see a branch in the tree of death metal forming as Pestilence pulled away from their older aesthetic and tried to go with something both new and old. While some of these tracks later made it onto Mind Reflections, it would be excellent to see this recording get a legitimate release.