Band:	In-Quest
Album:	The Comatose Quandaries
Style:	Technical death metal
Release date:	May 2005

01. Diffuse Pattern Recognition
02. Audiotoxic Binaries
03. Socioneural Geneticism
04. The Cryotron Frequency
05. The Frozen; Nuclear Aftermath
06. The Comatose Quandary
07. Warpath
08. Systematic Arhythmetic Hate
09. Operation; Citadel [bonus]
10. Sigmoid Signal
11. Resilient Androtronic Carnage

Style: Renewed Extreme Metal
Released by Goodlife Recordings/Dockyard1 on 23 May 2005
Length: 56:31

Mike Löfberg: Vocals
Gert Monden: Drums
Jan Geenen: Rhythm Guitar
Douglas Verhoeven: Lead Guitar
Manu Van Tichelen: Bass

Another mentionable Belgian Death Metal powerhouse is In-Quest. In-Quest formed in 1994, and has risen after ten years in the underground scene to a popular guest on line-ups of X-Mass Fest, LL-Metal Fest, No Mercy Fest and Graspop Metal Meeting. Through their career, they have become one of those bands that are difficult to prescribe which genre exactly they are playing. Now, with "The Comatose Quanderies" the band progresses towards a more industrial related approach, which contributes perfectly to the band's unique and creative style.

The very first thing that needs to be noticed is the extremely amazing vocal performance of Mike Löfberg. This is only the first album where Löfberg is taking care of the vocal duties, after the departure of Sven de Caluwé (known from Aborted), but he certainly does a fantastic job. He is a specialist in providing a great mix of clean vocals, deep and long-drawn-out screams and powerful growls. This together with the power drumming, nice (double) bassing, hard riffing and blasting beats, makes this fourth In-Quest studio album a real killer.

The overall sound on "The Comatose Quanderies" is alternating from typical, blasting death metal parts to more calmer and very technical parts, creating a pretty complex, and by times even creeping atmosphere. The raging Death Metal parts are actually pretty pure, heavy and aggressive, and are not far from being called brutal. It will be no surprise that this band has already served as support act for Nile, Fear Factory, Suffocation and Morbid Angel. Though the sound is not only technical but the lyrics also are very clever and elaborated. As can be seen by the song titles, the song writing is also rather complex, telling about a dark and futuristic world. All these (almost schizophrenic) classic Death rage/technical geniality shifts make In-Quest a highly enjoyable and great Death Metal band. But they're also at the same time, especially on the calmer parts, a very technical band which you will have to give some time to really get into and grown on you. In-Quest is just not an average Death Metal band and "The Comatose Quanderies" is not an album you just listen to for the sake of it. For that, this album is far too complex. This album is rather an interesting experience and futuristic journey through 11 mind breaking puzzles.

I'm sure a lot of people will not like this kind of album. Again, this album is not suitable for mindless head banging, but it is made for those people who like to give an intelligent twist in enjoying Technical Death Metal. And those who spend a little more time to seriously get into "The Comatose Quanderies," will discover a real Tech Death pearl!

Highlights: Audiotoxic Binaries, The Cryotron Frequency, The Comatose Quandary (with guest vocals from Michael Bøgballe of Mnemic), Warpath, Resilient Androtronic Carnage


Special thanks to HE:LL Metal for making this review possible.


Website: http://www.in-quest.be - http://www.myspace.com/inquest1