Heralds of Sonic Disrupture
This
Mexican band is the next representant of a very popular metal genre: melodic
gothic metal. Yes, young, handsome and beautiful guys with two female cherubic
vocals and obligatory keyboards stand proud on the modern stage of nice and
pleasant metal. The name of this band: The Massacre Must Begin… Wait, wait a
minute… Is everything correct here? NO! Of course not, I hope you didn’t
believe in this fucking bullshit from the beginning!
All right,
let’s back to the world of TMMB – the world of devastating grindcore and death
metal exclusively. This band I treat as a kind of sensation – I have in my huge
collection many bands from Mexico, but TMMB is the first one playing metal in
that style. And the main question is: why the hell I begin the review with such
mistakable introduction? Because I would like to visualize what is the
difference between these Mexicans and light melodic and euphonic metal. The
reviewed proposal is undoubtedly metal stuff and it is served in most hateful
way or form for laics. Maybe for somebody who listens to some heavy metal
bands, for example Iron Maiden and other stuff like this, the feelings coming
from the music of Mexicans will be unacceptable. Ok, let’s leave them alone and
return to the album. Looking at the front cover I can write one thing: it’s
good I do not see here rotting human remains, sexual intercourses of dead
bodies and other nice pictures because such stuff is simply boring today with
unfavourable impression on the start. Practically this picture is taken from today’s
life on almost every street: blood, some dirt and filth, and instrument of
crime on the bench…
Well, the
band prepared eleven ultra brutal songs in grindcore/death metal vein. Introductions
or special effects coming from motion pictures or horrors are missing here, so expect
only pure musical madness. Production of this album also satisfies my needs,
everything here is audible very well: the guitar wall – like a ravaging typhoon
falling on your straw poor home, really raw and harsh knifelike sounds, even
there is only one guitarist Julio, the overall impression is paralyzing. It is
like a pulling the strings, guitar sounds are nervy and uneasy, there are some
minimal breaks and it all makes this music is rather difficult in general reception.
The rhythm section is also marked here (but sometimes I have an impression that
drums should sound more powerful), I liked these moments when Nisan shows his
bass during the riffs breaks lasting less than one second. About drum work one
thing is sure as hell – Oliver doesn’t want to be the fastest drummer on the
world. As a matter of fact there are many slowdowns and mid-paced tempos, so
Oliver has to show his talent, and he did it. These fast parts are rather
addition to the ‘proper’ TMMB music and this band is the excellent example how
to devastate the listener without being “only blast is real”. The main task of
this music is to crush and grind (core) and these crazy Mexicans know how to do
it. The last brick in this wall are two different lines of vo-kills (it is hard
to name it ‘singing’) – these two persons, I call them Mr. Guttural and Mr. Pig
(no insult here!), provide everything I demand from such music. Both they do
really great job with their throats and show completely another dimension of vocal
art than your favourite local pop star or opera singer. Try to come after Lex
and Neto. Expect pharyngolaryngitis solely. Another good point is that they use
only Spanish language, with lyrics printed in the booklet I can follow them and
their vo-kills are surprisingly clear!
It is
really hard to choose the best track, you know the absolutely highlight for
radio station or to make a video clip. I treat this situation as another good
point, because we have here eleven straight compact songs. Also I have to write
about scheme dominating in first half of the album: hard, heavy opening of the
tracks, then some speed ups, and the band returns to the slower parts (“¿Dios?”,
“Sintomas de muerte”, “D. A. A. F.”, “Mi autopsia”). To be honest, this kind
songwriting isn’t a boring time for listener, in addition TMMB proposes many
rhythm changes and twisted yet sick musical tunes as well. The second group of
the songs album is opened by “Estigmata” when very fast tempos dominate on the
beginning. Of course there are slowdowns mentioned just above (the next “Angel
necrofago”, “Coma”) after the initial sonic hurricane. Writing about openings
of the tracks, I have to point out on quite interesting thing, namely the first
seconds of “Odio”, it reminds me… Nile (both musically and vocally), but
Mexicans really fast destroy this feeling after several seconds and bring back
their sickness. In turn “Masacre” has totally different beginning because of
very interesting group of riffs which take me into the world of pure death metal,
even I can hear some melodic tunes… yes, calm down man, TMMB didn’t become a
second ‘In Flames’, they didn’t forget their main task, so after several
seconds of muse they pump a real metal blood into my veins once again. And then
by rotation: slow and fast parts, as always.
To sum all the
things up: I deal with really solid and brutal band (as brutal as life around
you). The music isn’t original (and I guess they didn’t want to be original, but
some bands come to my head: maybe old Napalm Death, maybe representatives of
brutal US death metal bands like Devourment, Disgorge, even Terrorizer or old Benediction),
but in my opinion Mexicans try to play their tunes very frankly and
convincingly, and for sure they are in the first league in this metal genre. Writing
about lack of originality which is absolutely no drawback here, I have to point
out these best things this album is definitely worth to check out: no intros,
Spanish lyrics and murderous heaviness during slow and mid-paced tunes. These
three elements cause “TMMB” is unforgettable brutal and sick metal release. 32
minutes of musical madness run very fast and if I want to keep in with these
heralds of devastation, I have to put the play button once again…
90/100
-Tlacaxipehualiztli
(previously written for Encyclopaedia Metallum, on October, 2011, now modified a bit)
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