Mexico isn’t the first place that you think of when it comes to hateful and nihilistic black metal, but it just might be, after you’ve heard this first full-length album from Precaria.
Released last year in limited quantities, ‘Precaria Ex Humanitas’ is the work of Hermit Ov Tehom, who along with drummer Opposus Discordia have crafted six long sermons to the misery of mankind and the procreation of chaos. Self-produced and self-released, the album is a fitting example of “Orthodox” black metal.
The initial reaction is that this album has a similar style and sound to mid-era Throne Of Katarsis, but without that band’s self-conscious pandering to a particular scene. This is clearly no money-making exercise, and the honesty and integrity of ‘Precaria Ex Humanitas’ is strikingly evident throughout, even though the vocals are delivered entirely in Spanish. This is no bad thing, as a language that is derived from Latin suits the music very well.
The pace of the album rarely subsides, with pummelling blasts, rasped doctrines, and flurries of trem-picked guitar slaughter. Such elements would usually be termed as cold and frost-bitten, but when you take into account the bands country of origin, and the striking red CD artwork, the overall effect is more akin to raging hellfire.
The production is as you probably would expect, pretty raw, and even though this may result in the occasional muted drum sound, everything still manages to punch through admirably. With the cascading riffs and subtle background chants of ‘Traficando Los Órganos De La Iglesia’, the bass guitar that provides the characteristics of ‘Para Muchos Pobreza, Para Pocos Sabiduría’, and the shimmering guitars and doom-laden middle section of ‘Estupro a La Conciencia’, there is plenty of texture to the fiery assault.
The vocals are commanding and impressively anguished, and the clean guitars of ‘Evangeliza Con Veneno Nihilista’ bring a brief moment of respite to the reigning chaos. The off-kilter time-changes of ‘Corrupción Como Primordial Obligación’ and the jagged, stabby riffing and acoustics of ‘Violencia Como Pan De Cada Día’, means that there’s certainly enough here to hold the attention over the course of the lengthy six tracks, proving that ‘Precaria Ex Humanitas’ is a lot more than just your usual blast-fest.
This is good stuff, and perfect for those that like their black metal raw, uncompromising, and truly underground.
(8/10 Stuart Carroll)
https://desavenencia.bandcamp.com/album/precaria-ex-humanitas
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