If there is one thing this album demonstrates, is that metal is truly international. When I saw the description of this band and its music, I was intrigued to say the least; Russian Aztec-influenced ethno-doom-death! Even that description fails to do justice to the music that this unusual band play, however, I will attempt to describe it in more detail!
It is true; Tenochtitlan are indeed fixated and obsessed with the ancient, mysterious cultures of the tribes of South America, the Aztecs, the Mayans, and the Incas et al. The album title translates into English as “Creation of Earth”, as with previous releases, some of the song titles are in Russian, and some are in one or other of the tribal languages. Incredibly, this is the band’s fourth full length album dealing with such topics as `Montezuma’s Funeral’, `The Falcon and The Serpent’ (which I assume is about the legendary founding of the city Tenochtitlan) and so on. So, what does ethno-doom sound like?
Well, for start, this is epic with a capital E. Having no preconceptions of what this band’s sound would be, I was interested to find a subtle, multi-layered approach to the music, once the instrumental at the start had completed (a pastiche of primitive, hypnotic drums, pan-pipes and sinister noises). There is a dramatic layer of keyboards which really adds a majestic touch to the enormous, expansive atmosphere, as well as all sorts of other touches; the occasional blast of a wind instrument, drifting, harmonised guitar leads, melancholy piano breaks, and a host of unusual sounds. Every song on the album is a vast, elaborate monolith, with layers of music which drift in and out hypnotically. The pace is always kept slow to mid-paced to ensure maximum heaviness; it is like being buffeted by enormous icebergs on theArctic Ocean. A lot of the guitar work is fairly minimal, in that there are not great swathes of riffs roaring out of the speakers at you. The guitars are used either to add heaviness to the music passages with heavy power chords following the tune, or drifting, dream-like solo sections, some of which are extremely reminiscent of Pink Floyd (to my ears at least).
There is also a detectable industrial element here; some of the drum programming really reminds me of bands like Skinny Puppy, and also some of the percussion sounds are distinctly and deliberately artificial sounding (as far as I can tell). There are also a lot of unusual, harsh electronic noises peppered throughout the album which adds a strange `ancient versus modern’ vibe to the music. Vocals are also varied; there is a deep, aggressive death growl, a throaty, impassioned roar, and even some harmonised singing. All in all, the creativity of this band is staggering. It doesn’t always hit the mark exactly; I found my attention wandering in places to be honest. However, this said, when Tenochtitlan’s music comes together, it is vastly epic, heavy, atmospheric and quite unlike anything I have heard before.
(7.5/10 Jon Butlin)
www.myspace.com/tenochtitlanofficial
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