Very little does “Ciudad sin Nombre” (City Without a name) delivers in order to change non believers into Trauma fans; on a solid, well recorded album, that suffers from a constant repetition of rock clichés and ballads that follow a common and overused song structure.
Some claim Trauma to be a heavy metal band, but their sound is unquestionable good old rock n’ roll, and that is something that doesn’t diminishes the fact that this is one of the oldest most solids outfits in our country, so taking their history into account I have to come clean and recognize that despite this been a clean, good effort, it lacks that “Je ne sais quoi” that makes albums transcend from their birth into our conscious. But perhaps I’m expecting or demanding to ... Read all

Nice, solid mellow death, clearly resembling influences such as Dark Tranquillity. Darkemist constant interaction between energetic vocals and sweet melodies carry the songs more into a conciliatory rhythm than a frontal assault on your senses; something that far from excluding the more “traditional” metalheads, in forces us to recognize just how much has metal grown since the early years of Venom and the likes.
Relief is the second album from this Chilenean death band, and it comes full of precise and beautiful moments that don’t quite surpass what has been done by the likes of Detonation, DT or even one of my favorite mellow bands Noumena; but it firmly establishes the genre... Read all

Let’s first establish something very clearly, Costa Rica’s grandfathers of metal are among the best in their genre when it comes to write catchy classic metal riffs, and I’m not comparing them just to Latin American heavy metal bands, I’m comparing them to international renown names such as Iron Maiden, Saxon and Judas Priest… yes the riffs in “En pie de Guerra” are that good; sadly bad vocal placement restrain this record from going beyond our borders.
There is a huge improvement in this 2007 release from what we had the pleasure to heard on their 2002 debut “Pasado y Presente”; the riffs are tighter, faster, catchier, is like this bunch of middle age guys ... Read all

Sometimes more often than few an old band discovers triumph without selling out their principles. Few readers probably remember Torture Squad’s debut album back in 1998 “Shivering” an old school death record that few exaggerated its importance in Brazil’s metal history, but that marked the start of a career that despite a few “critics” (like myself) has elevated the name Torture Squad from an unknown project to a Brazilian representative of death/thrash metal.
To be completely honest, after listening to “Shivering” a couple of years ago I never bothered to look for the rest of their “portfolio”; having been totally discourage with a record that not only sounded terrible thanks having to review another one of their records, and so the... Read all

What is more “thrash” than to wear old, falling to pieces blue tight jeans, white basketball sneakers, long hair and a denim non sleeve jacket full of other bands patches…well actually playing good thrash! And even when Violator is smart enough as to capture the “old school” aroma with a couple of catchy riffs, they fail in presenting more than just another band trying to revive the movement (which never died, or did Kreator, Megadeth, Exodus, Destruction, Exciter stop playing thrash and nobody told the media?).
The most obvious influence to be heard on Chemical Assault would be Exodus; Violator doesn’t exactly copy Gary Holt’s style but it does carry some of his earlier, angrier and raw material ideas that made the San Francisco ... Read all

One of the things I find most remarkable about metal is the fact that, despite its obscurity in the popular eye, it extends its tendrils everywhere. Most places you look, you can find at least one group performing some kind of metal. Granted, no one ever said it has to be good: a good portion of the banter on certain metal forums is occupied with deriding the seemingly endless hordes of one-man bedroom black-metal acts, their music recorded on a three dollar tape-recorder.
While Kay Pacha falls into the black metal category, they avoid the bedroom categorization, featuring a full four-piece lineup. They released their first demo, Ayllu Wanka, in 2006; since then, they’ve rereleased their demo as a split, and put out another demo. The title refers to the ... Read all

It is more than obvious that the music, the black metal by this Peruvian band, has nothing surprising, nothing out of the ordinary and it is plagued with common, repetitive formulas that don’t really allow you to listen to the record more than one time; but it’s the topics that the band focuses on the real interesting, attention grabber here; the topics are Inca mythology, and thanks to that interesting approach, the record saves face, but it fails miserably to deliver some compelling music that might make you search on Peru for black metal.
Ancient demons, powerful brave warriors and the importance and transcendental idea of the division of the planet according to the Incas, forces you to “Google” for all the terms, names and stories told in this record; a great ... Read all

Extremely well done retro thrash, with abysmal, disgusting, horrible vocals; there is very little room for arguing that Gabriel Garcia (even the famous Colombian writer would dismiss him as a singer) does anything more than ruin great riffs and memorable songs. If it wasn’t for the terrible judgment of Garcia’s band mates Tungsteno could have released a pretty decent and worthy of attention demo; but his existence and ridiculous high pitch screams are so bad that it embarrasses you just by been a little emphatic.
Like all the new wave of retro thrash metal, this Argentinean outfit explores ridiculous and cliché lyrics about thrash metal, headbanging, drinking and social struggle... Read all

Creative, catchy, interesting and with just a simple flaw… lack of consistency!
Drain is Costa Rica’s 1n54n0 second full length album since their creation back in 2000, and song by song it blows you away; some might be a little skeptical about giving this album and this band a chance, since their description is metalcore/thrash, even thou this record has little to none thrash riffs in it; excelling in production and a certain progressive idea fussed with remarkable simple yet interesting songs Drain is worthy of time and money.
I believe the closest that we can get to compare this record with something that you might have listen to would be to compare them with Ministry, even thou they are a bit more diverse when it comes to song structure... Read all

How many bands openly follow Black Sabbath? A burning question indeed, but the founding fathers have gathered more worship than any other metal group, and thus, we have several auditions wallowing in doom without any intelligence; however, Kranium can kick a room full of asses. As they’ve been slithering under the radar for several years, Kranium has been involved with several sounds, yet “Testimonios” finds them reaching toward a hardy agenda based on “Paranoia” and other Black Sabbath classics. Sounds pretty bland, doesn’t it? If you think so, wait until strange folk-laden instruments and death metal influences softly stroke this typical sound, making it what these Peruvian shredders are all about: both commonness, and obscurity ... Read all

Celebrating 11 years of existence on a tiny tropical country like Costa Rica for a child might not be such a big deal, since we have a very “1st world country” mortality rate (A little socialist propaganda there for you!); but for a black metal band living in a very conservative, Christian country is a big deal, and so Morbid Funeral has accomplished that, to survive the society that surrounds them and their inner struggles to have a solid line up, so hails to Morbid Funeral.
Congratulations, adulations and respect aside “Satanas Rules The Earth” is a weird album, the description of the record is of been a “Best of” compilation but I don’t see this tracks on previous releases so I guess... Read all

First lets get something out of the way that bothers me about this band, and that’s the name; this is a very subjective point off course, I fucking hate clowns, like most people that have seen “It” the name and the white make up disturbs me in a non funny way! Ok so how’s the music of Mad Klown… good, very good; I can even dare and compared them to a young Aborted, but with a lot more sense in what a melody is and how to make it work with this brutal death with thrash like guitar solos, just check out “Your blood will paint these walls” a great song with clever riffs that make them stand out of the crowed Latin brutal death scene... Read all

One of the more interesting “effects” after my first encounter with this album was how surprisingly tight these guys manage to write each song, adding so much elements, rhythms, and tempos to a few minutes of time on each track; making you feel only on the third piece as if you had already gone through at least seven songs… that variation, complexity and “plethora” of sounds helps and hurts what could have been with a little more self control a great technical death album.
Every single song has at least 4 or 5 extra riffs that could have easily became another song, or maybe they should have been removed from certain pieces in order to develop the main idea to its fullest potential, instead of cramming so much into so little space, maybe is not even the ... Read all

A fast assault on your senses, and the lingering question… what more can they do? Those are the first impressions and first reactions to this Costarrican grindcore/death metal newcomer.
The demo is as fleeting as their grindcore influences defined the genre, yet heavy and surprisingly well layout; with interesting and out of the ordinary guitar lines, which in a short period of time manage to include compelling rhythms that belong more to the death metal scene than to the bands grindcore side… which after a couple of spins begin to fade away, making you conclude that the band is more brutal death metal than grindcore really! Still you can’t deny the “stench” of grind, more so in the last and brief song “Turning Into A Pedophile” a 49 seconds undisputed grindcore track that... Read all

There is something very “seductive” about early thrash metal, those easy, catchy, memorable riffs stick to your mind as easily as they did the first time you notice bands like Metallica, Exodus and Dark Angel. That same ear catching “symphony” is present in Colombia’s very own Witchtrap, portraying perhaps a retro sound worthy of Hellhammer or even early Celtic Frost… I know I just mention more than 4 bands to try and accommodate the sound of this band, but if you pay close attention to “No Anesthesia” you’ll be able to find some traces of the previous bands mention.
The simplicity and rawness of all the songs and a clean enough production transform this album into more than your typical “tribute to the 80’s” thrash band, and make you recalibrate what thrash is all about and ...Read all

“Hábitos de Guerra” or War habits for those of you that don’t speak Spanish beyond “taco and señorita”, ok sorry about that, I don’t pretend to give you a lesson about just how important it is to learn the other languages that are been spoken in your continent, you should know that by now, and I should learn Portuguese!
80’s thrash with Spanish lyrics… I know, I know recently there have been a flood of old school thrash bands all over the world, but this album is from 2002, when thrash was pretty much forgotten and melodic death was king; so give then a break and read more about this Peruvian band, because their sound is quite good!... Read all

Uninspired, repetitive and oddly uncomfortable technical segments, doom “Coleccion de Humanos” to become just another underground “typical” brutal death album that displays heaviness but not much music.
It is quite hard to write a review about an album that only has one line of ideas going nowhere but the typical path of brutal metal; these guys try and fail to add interesting, ear catching guitar lines that really make you wonder… “why… oh god why?” and the problem is the placement of this fleeting technical bits, they seem to be forced into some tracks just as an attempt to provide the album with some variety, and you can see why they tough they were necessary after listening to the album more than 5 times like I did before ...Read all

When, and I believe this to be true, when Costa Rica finds a good recording studio and good producers, our metal could become one of the top branded in Latin America; sadly, we are still looking for professionals that will take metal seriously enough as to invest on it! Cangrena suffered in 1999 of this specific “disease” terrible recording conditions and a sort of immature way of approaching some of their songs.
Demoniac Transition is a death/grind album that has very nice, very catchy and very fucking heavy songs, a decent vocal work, bad sound and sometimes an extremely tacky sense of judgment; most of the lyrics are just badly written, and is not totally Cangrena’s fault, English is obviously not their strongest language (off course if you read them ... Read all

This album was originally released back in 2003 by Dark Sun on vinyl and restricted to 500 copies. I give you this info just so you can understand the level of commitment for old school metal that this guys have; and it is big, even sick if you ask me, there is nothing modern, progressive, contemporary, up-to-date here, not even the bad recording is new!
Diabolic Force is what Hellhammer used to sound like; primitive and brutal music that guided metal into developing new genres and therefore splitting the scene into what we can call today, black, death and thrash. The only problem with this is that most of the “beauty” in bands like Hellhammer, Celtic Frost and Venom is that they were playing as ...Read all

I truly believe that when it comes to black metal, Latin America reached or matched a couple of years ago the sound perfected by that Norwegian wave of BM that took the world by surprise back in the early 90’s; what I’m trying to say is that we can finally, copy, reproduce, perform and even look like the early bands that inspired most of our BM artists, that doesn’t mean we are creating good black metal, that just means we are going in the right direction!
If you read Förnost influences in their Myspace, you can pretty much picture what they sound like (just in case you aren’t bright enough to just listen to the songs they have in there!!! Duhhhh) ok, so yes they are old school black, but they have some melodic parts that really help break the ... Read all

There is a term that I believe can be applied to the context in which this Brazilian band portrays their latest material… “Overkill” and I don’t mean the band, I literately mean overkill, you know the action of excessive killing; in this case excessive black metal imagery, sounds, ideas, lyrics, pictures… you know what guys! We get it, you play black metal and you are satanic! But take it down a notch with all the anti-Christian rhetoric, because after a while it begins to sound quite childish and your music deserves way more than that.
So their “attitude” might be considered a bit childish, embracing with way too much enthusiasm every single black metal cliché; but how’s the music? ... Read all

Good old school thrash! Necrolisis along side Eternal are bringing thrash back to our Costarrican metal ears, and even when they also appeal to our love for the old school sound of the 80’s, they are a bit different from Eternal. Necrolisis is more primitive, simpler yet catchy and for some reason they sound a bit more “old school” than their comrades! (This could just be the effect of an extremely raw production, but I’ll let you be the judge of that)
This Turrialba band decided to take a different approach in this demo, instead of “invoking” the old bay area thrash scene of the US they went for a more “German Destruction/Kreator” type of sound; fast, indiscriminate riffs escorted by catchy tunes, and slashing screams Good old school thrash! Necrolisis along side Eternal are bringing thrash back to ... Read all

Having absolutely loved “Demoniac Flagellations”, I had some big expectations when Peruvians Anal Vomit announced their second full length… and it finally did. Depravation is not exactly a step forward for the band, in fact and I don’t really know why, they decided to take a couple of steps back on what seemed to be a great future for this black/thrash outfit. The album is fun, is old school is aggressive but it has no memorable moments, no remarkable songs, and not one single sticky riff.
The early Sepultura, Sarcofago and Slayer influences are there, perhaps the Slayer sound has increased this time around, with a faster interpretation from Possessor (Bass and vocals) and more high pitch mayhem screams “adorning” some songs Anal Vomit has tried to go even dirtier in their ... Read all

Reminiscing about the early Napalm Death years? Well stop spinning that poor “Scum” album and listen to something more “contemporary”. Larvario has that same aggression, those same grinding screams and those chilling guitars that made Napalm the legend they are today.
This Peruvian band knew exactly how to capture the essence of grindcore with all their blastbeats, speed and bone breaking riffs. The songs are as expected, short, simple but brutal, some do carry a good death melody, like the well structure “Blonde Girls Stalker” a song that begins as a grindcore classic and evolves into a more death metal track, that manages to unite both elements perfectly as the song ends; examples like this repeat themselves through ... Read all

Searching through the bag of now memories I found this San Ramon melodic black band; and I realize why it was in the “for later” list to listen, the record is so full of filler songs that you can easily cut this 10 song production into a 4 track EP and the rating and impact would have better, even memorable and worth mentioning as a good example of melodic black, but they didn’t instead they pushed this 10 track repetitive monster down my throat and hell was it difficult to swallow.
Like I mention in the intro there are some good songs in here, and the style of mixing very raw black vocals with melodic almost rock n’ roll guitars is pretty good I may add, but is the lack of “distinctive” riffs from most of ... Read all

There is unquestionable brutality and darkness in Underworld Inquisition, the problem is the lack of surprises… better put the continuous use of the exact same formula to play each song, this after a while begins to corrode the a good first impression; yes it might be heavy as fuck, but there is no real “catchy” or “memorable” riff underneath a decent drum work and a very adequate vocal work.
Corpus is pretty much death metal, but with a black atmosphere and attitude; the songs explore the straightforward and fast style of bands like Incantation and Deicide, a sort of death metal that demands a good based guitar in order to survive all the “brutality” that surrounds their compositions, and that is were Corpus fails. In their defense ... Read all

After Pentagram disintegrated in part thanks to a very mediocre support from the Latin scene, Criminal rose from its ashes; not the same band, not the same sound or the same feeling to be completely honest, but the important thing is that Anton Reisenegger (Pentagram) never gave up on metal, even when the fans might have giving up on him; and that was our fault really because Pentagram was and could have become bigger than Pantera, bigger than Metallica, but we never help the Chileans out, so here we are talking about Criminal.
Without having heard Criminal before this album (I admit ignorance, but from now on I’ll be waiting for their next release) I have no comparison to what ... Read all

Following the more than traveled path of underground black bands that received first instructions and inspiration from the Norway scene of the early 90’s; Peruvian Belzec recaptures the “magic” and well tuned fieriness of raw satanic black metal.
You have to look beyond the terrible album cover to discover a loyal example of crude yet extremely rhythmic music flowing through “The Art of Holocaust”; simple lyrics that stick to your skin as the seconds become minutes and the songs grow in musicianship and creativity, maybe not the usual “progg” creativity but definitely a fresh way to bring catchy riffs over and over without transforming the album into something you can easily relate to what the main stream metal world has to offer.
The “beauty” of the album ... Read all

Energetic, fast paced thrash metal, with some terrible choice for clean vocals; yes this Brazilians are pretty good, and their music has the perfect combination of old school basics and modern sound that keeps you engaged through their entire 30 minute Scribbles in Blood.
It becomes clear that one of their main influences is Exodus when you hear the cover “Strike Of The Beast”; and well before that you can hear it on their relentless drum attack and groovy riffs that carry thrash into a more “understandable” road; hey there is nothing wrong with bringing some catchy “groovy” tunes into thrash; but there are some that are allergic to good rhythm so I can see some already complaining.
Scribbles in Blood can be downloaded ... Read all

Malignum could be described as a Cannibal Corpse band with a couple…well with a lot of rpm’s below the speed limit, and with way more melodic guitar segments, well thinking about it better, they sound a bit closer to Obituary, but hey you get the point!
The album is brutal thanks to Piero’s deep growls, and the support of a well paced drum; all of which is well kept in placed and groove by the guitar, who allows the album to have brutal yet extremely melodic segments, that could have send this album way over the 8 rating mark but sadly the mediocre production didn’t help, I mean every thing is pretty clear, but the drums sound inert, natural but tune down and so they loose some of the intensity that the songs require.
Its true that there are some more thrashy ... Read all

Some of the most difficult things to do and to be able to hear is an album with perfectly tuned aggression and melody; with force and a groove capable of engaging you at first listen, and that’s something this Colombian band has created in Earth Of Blood.
From the very beginning the album grabs your attention with some catchy thrash riffs and a very simple death vocal line that blends perfectly with a great tune that is heavy and groovy at the same time, at moments it may sound more melodic death than any other thing, but the raw drum work takes you back to a more “primordial” thrash feeling that doesn’t let go ... Read all

For some reason and to many this reasons are extremely obvious I may add, the Latin scene has slowly but strongly manage to mix the influences toss at us by the gringos and by the Europeans; perhaps the brutal US sound is the one that still leaves the biggest marks in our scenes, as the Europeans take the cake in the actual sound of our black movement; nonetheless there are recently a big number of bands that are trying to stay and develop a unique sound, mixing that US brutality and “sincerity” with the more deep, melodic and “prepared” sound that the Europeans have been dishing since the beginning of modern metal.
And this entire intro just to introduce this Pichincha band (yes that’s the name of the... Read all