Wednesday, January 22, 2014

BALAM AKAB - Sacrificio (2010)

The K'awiil Wrath
 
 
Look at the front cover. Can you feel this eyebeam of a beautiful woman, this wild desire coming straight to your thirsty soul? Can you really feel it? And maybe are you ready for something more, something unusual, something like… bloodletting ritual? If these matters appeal to you, this album may occur to be a real splendid experience…

Yes, “a splendid experience” is exactly what comes to my mind when trying to name the music by the band called Balam Akab. I may be wrong thus, you should judge it. There are a few important issues worth mentioning concerning Balam Akab’s music. The members of this band come from Mexico and they are unfriendly towards the English language. Typical Spanish rules? I don’t know but that’s good for the start, isn’t it? The latter thing is a question of “Sacrificio” being a full album or just an Ep? The band considers this effort as an album (the second one in their career) and I wouldn’t call this release an Ep as it consists of six songs lasting 30 minutes all together. Of course, there are many metal bands with materials being shorter but it is not the length but the quality what matters the most and that is why I am going to write about the music. 

Firstly, Balam Akab plays death metal and this fact is indisputable. The second thing may be rather unpleasant for the band, maybe “Sacrificio” is not an original production and maybe nothing new on the metal scene, but don’t get me wrong, I realize it is very hard to create a ripper in death metal, but with a little effort, it could have been something new, something more original. Personally, I believe that ‘non-originality’ is not a great defectiveness. The album production has a world standard, I mean the sounds I can hear really fit to the general perception, everything is just ok. It’s not as sterile as Hate Eternal or other today metal bands, so I can state that Balam Akab has another positive feature. I have already written some words earlier about originality and now, for certain, I can announce that Mexicans are the answer for Krisiun,  mainly because of drum work (though Omar doesn’t play so extremely fast, there are many blasts raging in music) and specific kind of melody (esp. title track “Sacrificio” and “ Kin”).  I have some good news for the band and for sure this is not a disadvantage, what’s more, this piece of metal is more convincing than last albums of Krisiun. The lyrics are written in Spanish and tell us the history of Mexico before the conquest (next positive feature). Vocals vary from typical death metal growls to blackish-like screams and other vulgar shrieks. Together with furious drum cannonade guitar riffs play havoc. Yes, I wrote something about melody, but this isn’t impudent and sloppy and you can’t describe it as a melodic death metal. Balam Akab skillfully doses fast parts, blasts and slowing downs (mostly on the beginning of the songs), the potential listener won’t go to the kingdom of boredom and hibernation. 

It’s hard to say which one is the best song on the album. Maybe “Tohil”, maybe the last one “Kin (nacer del sol)”. All tracks are on the high level, there is no weak song. Tracks numbered 1, 3 and 4 are opened with gloomy and sinister introductions being, in fact, some folk-like compositions. What about short content analysis? Coming straight to the second song “Tohil” I can perfectly see a fine cooperation of guitars and drums after slowing down (circa 1:45). The incoming hurricane is merciless, the band offers you a truly piece of death metal. The same feelings come to my mind from the title track. After the longest intro (1:35), ceaseless guitar and murderous drum massacre destroy everything on the way, this song also has the only shy guitar solo lead which is almost covered by the riffs.  The fifth composition is based on the very interesting guitar work, it ends suddenly making this song the shortest one. Mentioned above “Kin” has one really surprising thing. After two minutes of music bestiality, the band slows down. But this is not an usual intervention, these beautiful sounds remind me of old times and Hypocrisy “The Fourth Dimension” album. Really excellent thing! After 35 seconds the song comes back to the proper way, then again some slowing down and slaughterous speed-up. 

To sum it up, I can assure you that “Sacrificio” is a very good death metal album (despite of some words about originality). And to be honest, I must declare this stuff as maturing through the next listening. Perhaps, it is not the first league, but I was really pleased with it. Only six songs, but Balam Akab prefers quality to quantity. Without boring time and bullshits, without leading keys and female gothic stuff. Pure metal on the board. Moreover, an important thing is the metal underground which still can breed such a good metal act. Sometimes I wonder, whether the Mayan gods feel any satisfaction while listening to these death metal anthems?

85/100
-Tlacaxipehualiztli

(previously written for Encyclopaedia Metallum, on December, 2010, now modified a bit)

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