And Brazil does it again, I have come to a point in which my envy for Brazilian bands is turning into a bad envy, you know the type were you thrash awesome bands for the clothes they wear, or because they simply like to discuss world issues; well yeah this guys are just that, I can said mean things about the way they look, or their lyrics but I could never deny the simple fact that this album is one the best thrash albums I’ve heard this year.
Traditional yet modern, that’s the two words that combine for a lethal molotov cocktail of metal; Agressor sounds old school thrash, old school like Dark Angel, in some passages they sound like the early underground metal movement from Brazil that saw Sepultura arise in a legendary...Read all

There is a big misconception regarding the potential within black metal music, some believe it should just be played raw and simple, something similar to what the early punk movement in the UK believed his genre should sound like; but bands like Arcturus and Bathory have showed us that there is an enormous potential for beauty, intricate melodies and complex ideologies hidden within black metal, is not just about Satanism, and Sabaoth has taken upon them to let us know just how beautiful and intriguing black metal can be.
The album is an amalgam of rhythms and moods, some are dark and aggressive, others are depressing and some smell like doom metal (a big influence in many of...Read all

This is one of those albums that improves as the minutes go by, there are interesting riffs displayed in almost every song, even when some tracks may sound a bit watered down and not very exceptional, you can still find a couple of songs that will make 1917 a name to remember.
These Argentineans play a very “Latin death metal” let me explain, for some reason all over Latin America death metal bands sound like thrash metal bands and thrash metal bands sound like death metal, off course it could be because of the raw production in many countries but it goes beyond that; Vision is a mix of thrash guitars, death drums and raw black metal vocals in Spanish, some may disagree with the vocals but...Read all

Lately I’m having a huge problem telling death and thrash metal apart; and that’s exactly what happened in “Subversivos Espirituales” the guitars and many of the melodies tell me that it is a death metal album, but Neurosis’s main song writer insist in call in it thrash metal, since he has way more experience than me I’m gonna give him this one, but I’m going to establish that to me this album has a way bigger death metal influence than anything else.
“Subversivos Espirituales” has quite a nice militaristic drum work that really sucks you into their metal; I may dare and say that Neurosis mix of guitar melodies and hard catchy pounding drum work sounds very...Read all

Many can try and tell you that Deathmosphere is a clever mix of death metal, thrash and progressive elements; maybe you can buy this after reading some reviewers that place a lot of emphasis on this matter, but to me, this is a good and simple melodic death metal album.
The album is fast and angry, with a great amount of emphasis on guitar blending and a nice vocal performance; the production may have placed the drums a little too far behind for my taste, but you can still enjoy their attack.
It is kind of customary to “compare” a band with some old school act, but even as I’m about to fall into the cliché of “comparing” this band, I’m not going...Read all

Three way splits have never really been on my good side, I find them void and merely promotional (maybe that’s the whole point of splits), with that said this split found his way into my playlist for the merely rarity of the bands involved, a Paraguayan, Peruvian and Argentinean band are here, before this album I already had the pleasure of hearing Anal Vomit, kick ass band by the way, but had never before heard the other two, so I was intrigued mainly by Funeral from Paraguay, until yesterday I had never heard a metal band from this South American country.
Let’s go by segments:
Anal Vomit: their 7 song segment is nothing like the sound displayed in...Read all

Stupid intro… with that said I can begin to worship this guys, I can begin to worship the “anal gods”. Death metal played as raw, as primal and as inventive as they come; killer guitar, thundering drums, clear bass, evil vocals and a touch of early 90’s thrash that gives this entire album a fresh yet nostalgic sound.
The production is quite thin, it sounds almost like a live album, still all the instruments have their own lines and they can be easily understood.
The songs vary from English to Spanish lyrics; both languages are presented at their best, sometimes bands that try to do this “mix” end up...Read all

I couldn’t think of a better intro for this album, a rainy day, some lighting on the background, just like it is over here in San Jose during this time of year, gray skies and thousands of people sneezing everywhere.
Mandragora is a thrash band with heavy metal vocals, and off course some very melodic at times hard rock guitars that blend to achieve a fast yet “groovy” sound; from time to time it may remind you of some old Anthrax work.
The lyrics are all in Spanish in this album (a nice change of pace in my humble opinion), they all posses a very heavy social message like the track “500 años” a song about the situation of our aborigines, quite catchy...Read all

Morbid Funeral’s second album is a clear progression and an obvious growth from their first release. The production this time around has improved dramatically as well as the general song structure, the drums still sound plastic and artificial at some points, but the great thing and the great surprise was the return of female session singer Shirleny Arroyo, in COS.MI.KA. she sounds balance, spontaneous, fitting for the role, and she made me eat my words (I was kind of hard on her on a previous Morbid Funeral review); well that happens when you have a big mouth, and hell do I have a big mouth.
This album is cleaner, and possibly a bit more melodic than “Desolate Landscape Of The Human Soul”, perhaps that’s because the guitars...Read all

This was a very exhausting album to review, the guitar lines are not bad, actually a couple of good riffs can be taken out of this, but the rest was just painful, not because the band is bad, just because they use too much elements they shouldn’t have and too little of what they should have.
Maybe a couple of songs may sound original or just plain good, but rapidly you realize that the formula, the structure in which they wrote one song is repeated to exhaustion, I mean every song ends up being a rearrangement of the previous one, a continuous loop of riffs that otherwise could have end up being quiet good...Read all

Gothic metal or gothic music in general posses a very characteristic mood, a dark melancholic yet stylish way of consuming its listener into a world of darkness and beauty, it’s never aggressive it’s just passive and panderer.
Scarlet Visions has pretty much all the elements you could expect from a gothic album, keyboard arrangements, slow gloomy guitars, a deep and clean vocal work setting a very distinctive tempo that may from time to time elevate into a death metal growl and a sad chorus line; Adrián Díaz does a clean job performing the vocals with great timing, great timing not just with the music but also for the feelings and atmospheres. Among the most “energetic”...Read all

Don’t be intimidated by the amount of tracks on this record, ok maybe you should because the production is over an hour long, and I don’t know about you, but an album of more than 50 minutes is just too long for me, but still Demonicídio is fun and catchy, so is not a complete torture.
Death/grindcore is provided to us courtesy of this Christian band, well Christian oriented because is not like metal with Christian lyrics is not metal, a term sometimes too deep for some to fully understand, but hey I’m not gonna get into that right now...Read all

I know black metal is supposed to sound dirty, raw and primal, but this record just sounds like crap.
You can tell Ulfhethnar tried to go as raw and dirty as they could, and they succeed, everything sounds bad, you can’t even tell if there are vocals in this record or just distorted guitars, is like they applied a thick massive layer or dirt over ever single song...Read all

A gigantic leap forward for Costa Rica’s Arsenal, better production, tighter songs and an interesting mix of vocal styles, makes “Abyssum Spectare” one of their best works yet.
First I’ll start with the only thing I didn’t like; the vocal placement on the songs. Yes some chorus sections are catchy but it sounds like they didn’t really work on a more ingenious way of making the vocals fit the songs, it’s like they just forced them into the tracks, making them sound at times a little…amateur, something this band is not at all.
The guitars are great, probably the best thing on the album, catchy, melodic yet sharp; the riffs display all the talent and imagination within this guys...Read all

17 years playing death metal must have an impact on your body and soul, maybe when you reach 40 years playing death metal your body will transform into a flesh eating beast with no regard for human life…well its cool just to dream, meanwhile this Colombian band released back in 2004 their first English spoken album (yes their previous albums had Spanish lyrics) and let me tell you, even if you never turn into the beast that you would like to be, this album will definitely make you feel that you are already there.
Ok lets get into the album, this is death metal, fast chunky, and with riffs that will stick to you like virgins to a boyband; perhaps that’s Total Death’s...Read all

This album had potential… a lot of potential, classic raw black squeals and a couple of atmospheric sounds trying to approach symphonic sounds; but Morbid Funeral had to go and place a really crappie female singer trying to reach notes she can’t reach; but thank god they didn't include her in every song, because if they had this record will have sucked big time.
So, the record starts strong, right in your face with some fake as hell drums, and a constant but catchy riff, not a bad track, is just that the album is mostly based on raw black, and the drum sound is way too artificial to fit that dark atmosphere some songs create, they also destroy the symphonic sounds that really give Morbid Funeral an identity...Read all

Holly crap, there is great talent in Central America after all! It seems that I have been spending way too much time just listening to Costarrican and European bands, its time for a serious wake up call; and that call comes from El Salvador, in Dreamlore and Symbolic. The first one a nice well written, perfectly performed melodic death metal, the second one a mix of power metal with some great thrash riffs that make them sound a little progressive at times.
Since this is a split cd, let’s split the review and the score:
Dreamlore 9.3 : This band is great, they are a mix of Dismember and Dark Tranquility, leaning maybe a bit more into melodic death metal in their riffs...Read all

After a close listen to their latest album D.E.M.O.N, I realize that this Mini-CD is way better, not in general sound and production, but in how they managed to mix beauty and melancholic atmospheres without loosing sight of the kind of black metal Alastor is now famous for.
This is a sort of melodic yet raw black metal, with great keyboards and atmospheric insertions that create a great environment of darkness and beauty. I don’t really like the way they distributed this Mini-CD but that’s just my annoying attitude of always wanting more of a good thing; five songs, from which 3 are actually songs and larger than 10 minutes each, the other 2 are more close to interludes...Read all

If you like your death metal to have some ideological or spiritual meaning then Melektaus will be a good band for you. This Chilean band bases his music in brutal death metal compositions and lyrics based on magic-spiritual experiences and select occult readings, a very dark and interesting blend, for all of those searching for something deeper in music.
“Trascendence Through Ethereal Scourge” is fast, violent and off course obscure thanks to all the mysticism placed on their lyrics and atmospheres; the guitars have a nice sharp and morbid melancholy...Read all

If you love old school raw death metal, then this is the album for you; if you hate production and mixing, again this will be the album for you. We have to start by saying that the brutality contained in “Into the flames” is superb, sadly the sound of the album is terrible, but hey aren’t we all use to a bad sound in an underground release? I know I am; so because of this we have to dig deeper into the record.
Mid tempo Death metal with deep growls and unusual rhythm variations; Pseudo (let’s just call it that, since the name is just too long) is brutal, is raw and has a strange force in which they deliver every riff that nails...Read all

Just when I was about to give up on the possibility of good sound and production in the Latin American death metal underground scene, I received this album, and I was very surprised to hear a good clean production, not incredible, but definitely a step forward in the right direction.
Ok lets get into The Warfare Continues; this is fast brutal death metal album, well maybe not brutal all the time but it certainly isn’t melodic death metal; so lets called very aggressive death metal.
The Warfare Continues has its great moments in which it reminded me of Cannibal Corpse, mainly the vocals on the first track Warfare's Graves...Read all

Obscure, mid paced death metal straight from the bloody corners of Mexico; Cenotaph is now one of those legendary underground metal acts that are slipping through the memory of many Latin-American metalheads, and that can not be allowed!
With guitars that best resemble the early stages of American legend Death, and deep growls subtracted from the most sinister and depraved gore metal, Cenotaph brings with this, their first full length album a record that helped defined the death metal sound now produced in Mexico.
This album is a perfect mix of every single influence the band had when they recorded the album, the growls at some points can sound very Cannibal Corpse...Read all