Costa Rica’s Acero is one of the most respected bands and one of the pioneers in Costa Rica’s metal history, when some were just learning how to walk and still soiling themselves Acero was scaring our grandparents with “scandalous” riffs and rebellious tunes.

So 22 years of existence and one full length album! Yes it sounds a bit too little too late, but they have already made a name for themselves on the local scene and impacted many of today’s rock bands; so how is it this “Pasado y Presente” (Past and Present), well to recycle some of my own words… too little too late.

The album is heavy metal, it does remind you of legends like, Judas Priest and Iron Maiden, two of the clearest influences on the band; the twin guitars and the entire composition of these eight songs are remarkably well done, the problem, the big problem is the bad, the terrible placement of the vocals, and the almost childish lyrics that really hurt a well written and better performed album.

The highest point of the album, and the one that gives us the most hope if they ever put another album out is the quality in the song writing and the general well though idea behind every song, but they DO need to re-think the way they are placing the vocals on the album; Adrian Moya is a nice singer, his voice can match those high pitch tunes the guitars set him up to do, is just that it sounds like they write the songs and at the last minute they decide to place to lyrics, to force them into fitting tunes and rhythms that can’t really sustain the “vibe” that the songs are carrying.

Nevertheless Acero is a nice sounding band, with talented and experienced musicians, that know how to write a song, lets just hope that they can “fix” that little compatibility issue on the vocal side, and please lyrics about been a rebel and been a rock star are kind of overdone and washed up.