To be honest, I really wasn’t expecting much from this album. I listened to a couple songs they had uploaded to YouTube while waiting for the CD to arrive. Thankfully I’ve been pleasantly surprised, as it is so much better as a complete album, along with having a much better quality of sound. Ozzy Preciado’s snare cuts through everything like a scythe and Lui L. Valle’s constantly popping bass is treated as an instrument in its own right, rather than just something to give a bit more bottom end to the sound. Tony Vega’s vocals range from well controlled clean to gruff roars and the odd death metal growl all within the same song on occasion. Daniel Ruiz’s guitars have plenty of crunch with his riffs being both heavy and rocky when required.
From opening track “Sputter the Worms/The Always Forgiven” you can tell they are going to use changes in dynamics in their songs rather than have a song sound unvaried from begging to end.
There’s so much going on in “Magledonia (Harvester of Sin)” that it takes a couple repeated listens to appreciate it all. In much the same way the bass work on “Don’t Try to Steal Me from the Inside” is so complementary to the guitar riffs that they can play off each other without losing a beat.
“Dispose of Heartaches” has a bit of a grungy feel to it while the very upbeat “Die My Saint” is rather lively as is “Pulse” but with a more rock vibe as opposed to the funky one of the former before things slow down slightly for “Tolerance” albeit not by that much.
A nice solid but slow riff is used on “Stained Soul” allowing the vocals to take prime focus, even though the bass does an amazing job of take that away occasionally.
Starting with an eerily beautiful intro “Insanity” wastes no time getting to its true tempo as it plods along with plenty of bass fills and nearly as much anguish in the vocals.
From this point on the album heads towards slower more ballad-like songs where “Forsaken” comes across as the typical lost-love song and “Stairs of Guilt” is a slow dejected number which funnily enough contains the most uplifting lead but that could also be owing to the dour nature of the rest of the song.
Taking on a bit of a Pink Floydish quality, “Time” gently works its way from strummed clean guitars to lightly distorted with a rumbling bass line over a very simple timing signature and whispered vocals. After about 5 minutes the tempo increases to make the song far rockier as it rocks out the album.
All in all this is a rather fun album to listen to and even though it may not necessarily be all light hearted, it certainly does feel like it is most of the time.
(7/10 – Marco Gaminara)
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