Finally, after so much anticipation I got the new Pseudo album, and it was definitely worth the wait.
The album starts in a big, catchy, in your face way, (I’m sick and tired of track 1 always been and intro) “Sing, Oh! Goddess, Peleus Son’s Wrath” is one of the catchiest songs ever written by Pseudo, the chorus is genius “Pest!!!, Wrath!!!” this could easily become and anthem; the song is classic Pseudo, strong, raw death metal, but this time around everything sounds better, the production is better and the mixing has also improved a lot; I also noticed a more controlled flow in every song, meaning, that the structure of the songs is a...Read all

Just A Dream takes us in a ride through sounds and feelings from the past; if you like Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, Helloween, Black Sabbath you are definitely going to love this album.
A great mix of tempo changes that smell like good old school heavy metal; Slavon manages to mix all of their influences and add a little something extra to the mix, creating a fun album that will surprise you on every song. Like I mention before, every song has a distinctive “smell” to it, some remind us of Black Sabbath, others sound like Helloween and there some hard rock ballads like Empty Words that really show you the heart and soul of this band...Read all

Eternos kicks off with some thrash riffs, introducing their speed metal blend of amazing guitars and powerful drums; this is a typical Spanish spoken heavy metal band, yes their riffs are a great mix of speed and thrash along side some traditional heavy riffing, but the vocals are just like every other good Spanish based heavy band, Angeles del Infierno, early Avalanch, you get the idea.
The sound is clear and the guitars are great; this album has that special “smell” that reminds you from time to time to bands like Anthrax and Judas Priest, they don’t sound like the bands I just mention but Horcas really transports you to an another era, an era where heavy metal was king...Read all

This is not totally Nu metal, or metalcore, it has a mix of both, and some thrash riffs placed in every song that made me remember the best years of another Argentinean band A.N.I.M.A.L. (this could be because Marcelo Castro is part of Jesus Martyr).
The production of Jesus Martyr is impeccable, nice sound, great volume to every instrument, and that is one of the best things about this release; maybe for all the close minded metal fans out there this is just another Slipknot like band; but they really aren’t, yes they carry some Nu metal groove and riffs, but they manage stay away from the Nu metal sound...Read all

“Heroina del Infierno” is a compilation of songs by this Salvadorian band, ten years of work are placed on this very long album, the sound is terrible, but lets try to extract the best from this effort.
The last thing you want to hear after spending a lot of hours working on something is some smart ass critic (that will be me) thrashing your work, after all if you really worked hard on it at least you should expect a respectful review, it doesn’t matter if it’s good or bad, well here it goes.
The guitars are very well interpreted, those guys know how to play their heavy metal, at times the bad production does take some impact out of this crucial...Read all

A nice mix of melodic/symphonic/atmospheric/raw black metal, it may seem a little complicated and maybe a little “all over the place” but it sounds quite nice once you completely understand what these guys are trying to do with their black metal.
Hailing from Costa Rica and being one of the first bands in the country to promote and expand the black metal movement, Alastor S.E. is a strange black metal band, because of the unusual mix of elements that might transform other bands of the genre into a more “easy to listen” black metal, but with these guys you have melodic influences and sounds but still they are as raw as you can get...Read all

This record takes me back to the early years of Possessed, Morbid Angel and Death, not as good as they use to do it, but it definitely has that old school death metal sound that many love.
The Devil Speaks in Tongues is Mortem’s second full length album; this Peruvian band has achieved with this album a great level of guitar playing, the riffs and sharp, crunchy and very catchy with a couple of solos placed in between the 12 tracks this production has in store for you.
Mortem doesn’t complicate their music; this is brutal, mid tempo death metal with vocals that from time to time remind you of some black metal...Read all

Dismal Serenades is a good mix of black metal and a couple of symphonic elements; everything done in a very precise, tasteful manner; submerging the listener into a black metal environment composed by catchy riffs and dark sounds.
The album is obscure and perverse, but it has some gorgeous melodies and a couple of female interventions that enhance the deepness of the songs.
There are some great “operatic sounds” like in Moonlight shift, that administer a certain amount of melancholy and atmosphere elevating the song from catchy to almost epic. The production is good, not amazing...Read all

Don’t know if this Brazilian band is still together, or what kind of a deal do they have with French label Listenable Records (that’s why is nice to have a web site), but the thing is that “Chaos, Bringer Of All Revelations” is a great mix of Brazilian extreme death metal and American brutality, something like putting together Nile and Krisiun.
The riffs are straight up brutal and somehow technical; the main factor for Horned God seems to be aggression, every riff, every rhythm they begin to develop ends up in a discharge of brutality that can be a little confusing to those who don’t find Krisiun a “easy to understand” band...Read all

All it takes are 30 seconds from the first track to get hooked with Karma. This Brazilian progressive metal band has created a very catchy, well played and amazingly memorable album in Leave Now!!!
Every song is different from each other; Thiago Bianchi’s vocals go from power metal, to hard rock in the right places at the right times and the guitars, like any other progressive act are complex and interesting, without becoming pretentious and over the top.
Leave Now!!! Has a very good mix of keyboards and atmospheric effects that really manage to increase the value of every song. The mix did a great job by making every instrument sound clear, and placing emphasis...Read all

December’s Cold Winter, one of the most innovative Costarrican bands, brings us their album debut “Decaying Recollections”, an excellent work, where we can see the capacity and versatility of these five musicians that explore the limits of the national underground metal scene.
The songs are long, some of them reach the 8 minute barrier, and this gives us a sensation of progression, Opeth school style!!! The album starts with Abhorrence Eternal, a powerful, strong and solid track perfect to start the whole thing, as the song goes on the amazing instrumental performance and the sick growls by Alberto Montero stand out. The song is about despair, is about asking questions and not getting...Read all

There is something really tricky when it comes to power metal or heavy metal; the vocals are as important as the guitars and the solos; if a singer of this particular style of metal doesn’t have the proper vocal training, its going to sound bad, it doesn’t matter how talented the singer is, he or she needs some proper training to be able to reach some of the high pitch screams; and that’s exactly what’s wrong with this album.
Auriga is a one hour and seven minutes monster; the album is long, is very long, but it has some great moments and a huge display of talent and imagination. It will be hard and not very accurate to say that this is a progressive heavy metal band, that from time to time places some thrash...Read all

What do you do when you realize you can burp your way through a whole sentence? You start playing brutal death metal off course!
Brutality to the max here, in fact so brutal, so raw that little is left for actual song writing; you have to really be into this sort of Brutal Death Metal with a couple of Grind elements attached to it, to actually enjoy this album.
Monotonous riffs, that sometimes pretend to get deeper than they actually are, and a horrible drum...Read all

If for some reason you were wondering how did the Colombian death metal scene evolved during the late 90’s and early 2000; this is the record for you.
14 re-mastered tracks from all of the band’s discography (a couple of covers as well) up to 2002 are packed in 15 años de Guerra (15 years of war). When this record came out the band was celebrating their 15th anniversary, so it just seem logical to call their first “Best of” album “15 years of war”.
This is Colombian death metal, quite nice actually, in many aspects similar to what death metal used to sound like for bands like Obituary and Death; mid tempo death with deep growls and sharp guitars...Read all

Before actually listening to this record, a couple of friends told me that Arsenal was one of the best Costarrican bands they have ever hear; well I don’t know what happen in “Almas del Olvido”, because this album is really bad.
First of all there are a couple of good ideas behind Arsenal’s melodic Thrash metal; actually I don’t really know if this record is thrash metal at all, yes it has some songs that resemble what thrash metal should sound like, but mainly the riffs that you can hear are power metal (mainly the solos) and punk. Like I was saying the structure of some songs is interesting, and it shows that Arsenal had a couple of good ideas.
The album has a very promising intro of...Read all

I was very exited to hear this album for the first time, finally Costa Rica has a death metal band that wants to do things the right way; not only play gore or grindcore because those genres seem to be the favorites among our underground bands; nothing wrong with liking gore or brutal death metal, they are cool genres, is just that everybody in this country thinks they can do it, and some of them…well they just cant, death metal is more than playing as heavy and fast as you can and writing about rapes and shit.
First things first, this band sounds way better live than in this demo, Ignacio Blanco is a great drummer, sadly the sound of this record doesn’t let you...Read all

A good melodic death metal attempt by this Mexican band; way back in 1997 the mellow death movement was not new but it was definitely giving its first steeps, bands like At the Gates, Dark Tranquillity and In Flames were developing the sound and this Mexicans show us what we were trying to do over here in Latin America.
This album is not complex at all, melodic guitars playing side by side, some growls and some fast drums in the background make this a very simplistic going “by a formula” kind of melodic metal.
Like any respected melodic band Buried Dreams tries to place a couple of heavy metal riffs here and there, while the growls seem a bit forced...Read all

Choronzonic Force Domination is brutal, fast and fill with tempo changes that will keep you listening just to get a better idea of what these guys are doing.
There is nothing pretty about this album (well maybe just the production) death metal to extreme, very guttural vocals and devastating riffs are placed everywhere making this album exactly what Displeased Records says about them “a must for brutal death metal fans”.
With a nice clean production that really lets you listen to every instrument and helps you appreciate the level of technicality of Internal...Read all

With almost 17 years of existence this Costarrican outfit created back in 2002 a great death metal album; powerful deep riffs and evil growls attack you from every direction the first time you listen to this record.
Let’s get the obvious out of the way; the sound is not very good, actually it ruins the great riffs in this album, a very sad thing because every song really has a good structure and some pretty good ideas (I guess that’s the disadvantage of not having a big record label behind you; but hey that’s the story with all Latin American underground acts).
The album starts with and intro that...Read all

Here is a fun, fast, raw record; black metal with thrash riffs and the simplicity of punk music.
Ammit is a Chilean band that belongs to the deepest pits of Latin American underground scene since 1991, so they are no strangers to primal brutality. This record is their second full length album and it’s a great example of the kind of talent lurking in the shadows of our continent.
Hammer of Darkness opens with a track that can only be describe as a very long intro, 3:45 minutes of some faded vocals and a obscure drum work, not really worthy of more attention that the prelude of the noise to...Read all

If you were looking for some raw death metal… you found it! Protocol of Mummification is an obscure and brutal mini cd, perfect for a hungry underground scene.
Protocol of Mummification is a seven track piece of brutality full of growls and a couple of atmospheric sounds that create a sort of gore movie that you have to see even when it gets too fucking brutal.
The record begins with and intro track that for some reason makes me feel inside one of those abandoned houses were a gruesome murder took place many years ago; Obliteration Through Annihilation begins with the same atmospheric sounds as the intro track, a couple of seconds...Read all

Metalcore is one of the fastest growing metal genres in recent years and a perfect example of that is this Costarrican band. Very catchy riffs and vocals that try to get closer to a death metal sound are among its most remarkable aspects. Días de Agonía has almost 5 years in our metal scene and this latest mini cd is a big step for the band and their genre in Costa Rica.
This album was recorded in “La Alternativa” studio, and it’s really a great work by Marco Monnerat who has always distinguish him self for doing great productions...Read all