What can we say about a tribute album, well for starters Masacre deserves it, after more than 15 years playing a solid death metal that has influenced and reverberate all around Latin America the Colombians are an icon of the underground scene, therefore good for them.
14 different bands, with different backgrounds in metal are included in this “Bajo el Signo de la Violencia” (Under the sing of Violence); so, those that mean that I’m going to review each and every track…no, there are some bands here that instead of paying tribute virtually massacre…Masacre’s work, so let’s just focus on the good tracks.
The intro song “Brutales Masacres” played by Venezuelian Krueger, is a great opener, a solid performance and an extra touch of brutality by adding some really high pitched squeals; if you are like me and your first ever Masacre album was the excellent “Total Death” then you are pretty much going to hear for the first time all this songs, some are quiet catchy and brutal, they make me want to get the rest of Masacre’s discography.
“Exodo” played by Mistica is perhaps the best song on this tribute, this band plays a mid tempo death that reminds me of older Obituary albums, I really enjoy their segment.
“Mas Allá Del Dolor” with the interpretation of Colombian fellow band Threshold End, is another song ready to headbang at; fast death metal with the addition of some black metal oriented vocals, this is another great song with a nice tempo an a very catchy guitar line.
“Wrath Intense Pain” performed by another Colombian band Deadsoul, is a solid track, playing a great crunchy song that fits more to the most recent Masacre sound; from there on there are bands that really didn’t accomplished anything on this album. Even when Hateworks tried to get bands from different genres, black/progressive/melodic dark every track is pretty much played under a flag of death metal, I don’t know if it was because the bands involved in this project wanted to reflect the sound of Masacre or because they just weren’t allow to play the songs as they pleased, anyway the only band that actually brought a different angle to the album was Cronos, playing “Espinas” the band plays a mix of thrash/hardcore metal that at some points can even sound like Nu metal, I personally didn’t like their interpretation, but at least they added to the album some “spice”.
This is a very risky project, because the true fans of Masacre are going to really analyze and dismantle the bands on this record, and as pretty much all of them tried to follow the same line of interpretation is going to be very easy for those fans to get in their faces, maybe if each and every band played Masacre’s songs totally different from what the Colombians did maybe the album would have been a little more interesting, this album is for fans of rarities nothing more.
