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| #FOR FANS OF: Doom/Death Metal, Vastum, Apocryphal, early Anathema |
Managing to employ an old-school sound in today’s metal scene isn’t exactly a rare feat, what with the retro-Death and Thrash acts sprouting up seemingly by the minute, yet doing that and emerging as a competent force in your chosen genre is a fine feat indeed, and this Mexican-by-way-of-Sweden twosome is a stellar and oftentimes accomplished mixture of early Death Metal and old-school Doom. While the pace throughout is decidedly Doom, full of heavy, churning, agonizingly slow riffs sprawling from the darkness, the fact that they’re full of chugging grooves, tightly-wounded twisting rhythms and come packed with growling vocals gives this a truer Death Metal attitude which is remarkably addictive throughout here with this one really generating quite a vast amount of good will here in these rhythms. They manage to keep this one with a firm balance between the slow, plodding paces and a generally faster, more up-tempo drive here that still manages to come off coherently and flows logically together, but the greatest strength here is undoubtedly the type of cavernous, monolith production that makes this sound so much heavier and more dynamic. Though there’s some hit-or-miss tempos and riffing on display here, for a debut that’s a little more forgivable and is certainly drowned out by the more impressive elements featured here otherwise. Intro ‘The Last Journey’ gets this going with some nice swirling riff-work and plodding tempos that make for quite a stellar atmosphere here that takes a really dark, brooding ambience to the proceedings with the more Death Metal riffing spread throughout the final half for a solid start here. ‘Nothingness’ offers up more churning Death Metal riffs than the preceding track, but the crushing pace and heavy, thumping back-end here keeps this blistering pace in check before exploding into a frenzied up-tempo assault that makes this a fine highlight offering. Likewise, ‘Gray People’ follows up nicely with a strong opening riff and some solid drum-work that drops off the pace quite nicely here with the deep churning riffing offering up some solid heaviness though they drag this out somewhat with some dragging tempos in the later half that keeps this from being as fun as the earlier tracks. ‘Oceans of Darkness’ certainly does the slow, churning pace much better with a striking series of melodic leads, finely-tuned rhythms and much more enjoyable mid-tempo crunch that keeps this one rolling along nicely for another strong highlight offering. It’s back-to-back highlights as ‘Utopian Existence’ offers the most explosive straight-forward Death Metal styled opening as the charging tempos and pounding drumming throughout the second half offer forth the least Doom influence on the whole album as the stylistically darker rhythms here appeal greatly in another strong effort. ‘Frozen Sun’ comes lurching back into the Doom mold with a series of churning rhythms and plodding tempos while still offering the occasional blast of mid-tempo charging yet remains more rooted in those sprawling, heavy riffs which make this one of the better straight-forward Doom tracks. Both ‘The Machine of Desolation’ and ‘The Flight of Mind’ keep those churning rhythms in fine form as the blasting drumming and heavy-handed riffing make for strong impressions here with the melodic leads counter the up-tempo grooves quite nicely and making for overall enjoyable offerings. Finale ‘Eager of Death’ brings back the soaring, melodic tempos here with some rather fine churning riffs and droning rhythms that are played off quite nicely here in bringing a melancholy vibe that wasn’t really present before-hand and causes that to stick out here while still offering a fine ending note. Overall there’s some good points here that should help them out as they continue along. (Don Anelli)
(Solitude Productions - 2015)
Score: 85