Anarchists of the Underground Speed Groove — Tim Yeung (Divine Heresy) Drum Lick | MetalForge
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Learn the Anarchists of the Underground Speed Groove drum lick by Tim Yeung of Divine Heresy. From Anarchists of the Underground (Bleed the Fifth (2007)). While Tim Yeung is primarily celebrated for blast beat endurance and double bass velocity, "Anarchis...
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1. Tim Yeung's Signature Licks — While Tim Yeung is primarily celebrated for blast beat endurance and double bass velocity, "Anarchists of the Underground" from *Bleed the Fifth* (2007) demonstrates a lesser-discussed dimension of his playing: the ability to operate a driving, groove-oriented pattern at extreme tempo without losing the pocket. Divine Heresy's sound was deliberately engineered by Dino Cazares to combine the brutality of death metal with a groove component inherited from his Fear Factory work, and Yeung's performance on tracks like "Anarchists of the Underground" delivers that synthesis. The groove pattern on this track operates at approximately 185 BPM — extreme by any conventional measure, but slightly under the album's fastest passages — and features a ride-driven texture where Yeung articulates note-to-note differences in his hi-hat or ride placement rather than simply running a static pattern over a double kick ostinato. This groove-within-brutality approach is the core of what makes Yeung's playing with Divine Heresy distinct from his work with Morbid Angel or Vital Remains: the Morbid Angel context demands relentless blast and double bass with little variation, whereas Divine Heresy's riff architecture creates moments where the drums are expected to breathe, lock into a rhythmic hook, and feel like a groove rather than a purely percussive assault. Technically, the speed groove pattern requires that all four limbs be fully independent at tempo: the hi-hat or ride patterns change across sections, the kick fires in bursts that mirror the guitar's accented rhythm rather than simply running continuous double bass, and the snare marks the backbeat with authority while the ghost notes that feed into the pattern at slower tempos are compressed but not eliminated entirely. For drummers approaching Yeung's extreme-tempo groove vocabulary, the key challenge is not speed — it is dynamic control at speed. Playing patterns that have internal dynamic variation (a slightly louder ride accent here, a slightly lighter ghost note there) at 185 BPM requires the hands to be so efficient and automatic that there is processing capacity left over for musical decision-making rather than mere physical execution. The path to that capability runs through the fundamentals: clean single strokes, practised slowly until they are completely automatic, gradually brought up to the tempo where dynamic shaping becomes possible.2. Tim Yeung Profile — Drive the groove from the ride rather than a static hi-hat — changing the ride accent placement is what gives the pattern its forward momentum Fire kick in riff-mirroring bursts rather than continuous double bass to produce a groove feel rather than a pure blast texture Keep ghost notes compressed but present at extreme tempo — they disappear first when technique degrades under fatigue Mark the backbeat with consistent snare weight so the groove's backbone is audible through the dense guitar arrangement Build all four limbs to full independence at tempo before attempting dynamic variation within the pattern
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