Exterminio ritual or How to Mutilate the Goat
Mexican
label American Line is a metal stronghold. Joel released many good and great
underground records. But this time, something is broken, however I don’t treat Guerra
Total’s “Más allá de la tumba” as the biggest mistake in metal world. This is
my first meeting with this band and now I do not know if I want to hear the
debut or the newest one from 2012. Musically they perform very popular
(nowadays!) kind of metal, and describe their music as ‘black speed metal’. They
are almost right, everything is deeply rooted in the eighties, but there is a
need to add to their style simple thrash as well, you know, old Slayer, old
Running Wild and so on. Even I started to write about unpleasant things, let’s
focus on positive stuff. For sure one of the highlight is the work of rhythm
guitars where Colombians show a potential, just take a listen to “Exterminio ritual”,
the title track, “Tormento nuklear” or “I Am the Werewolf”. Sometimes played
fast, sometimes slow which seems to be a better direction for the band. Though
I heard those groups of riffs a million times, I think they really moved me
straight into the magic of old times. Vocals are maintained rather in black way
with very seldom eruptions of falsetto, good point for the band that some song
are sung in Spanish, definitely better choice than English in this case. The
rhythm section bravely follows the guitars, but with no any spectacular show,
just an usual work…
Thus, it’s
time to write about the worse side of the album, so let’s listen to the guitar
leads carefully. The first one appears in the second song (the opening track is
just an intro) about 1:16 played by Death Fiend of Haunted Graveyard &
Black Bishop of the Undead. To put briefly, this is horrible! It is played in
very chaotic way, but in the negative meaning of it. I can only feel some kind
of sick cacophony supported by weak technique that completely ruins the song.
Also sound realization of guitar leads should be mentioned here, cause it
sounds like… keyboards! Awful! Unfortunately the similar scenario is present in
other songs. And if the song has quite good riffs structure, the overall
impression is destroyed by these unrehearsed, not thought out piece of playing.
The leading example: just take a listen to the last track “I Am the Werewolf” maintained
in cool Motörhead vein. The real disaster comes with the opening seconds of the
first guitar lead which is absolutely one the worst solo I’ve ever heard in my
metal life. By the way, the second one isn’t better…
The next
thing that makes me annoy a lot, is using of horror-like introductions. As a
whole, the album has almost 37 minutes, without intros – 31 or something. But
this is a gross exaggeration. Guys, you are thrash/speed band, I understand one
intro on the beginning, maybe the second one on the end. Thus the band serves
almost six minutes of dawdling with a total defeat in the title track: opening
intro lasts 1:18, but this sweet (?!) melody taken from a nice wedding or some
love television series makes me vomit! Is it the call of Cthulhu? NO! Is it
scary? NO! Is it the worst intro in metal music? YES! And even if they assure
us about creating horror atmosphere in their music, I cannot believe them.
During listening to the album, I don’t go in fear and trembling. I can hear
only these awful leads and intros.
They wrote
in the booklet: “metal is destruction”. Yep, they’re damn right, but these
words don’t refer to their music. Guerra Total failed, but using my vivid
imagination, I can remove guitar leads and intros, and I will get pretty good
old school stuff, definitely nothing new, yet enjoyable and full of metal. For
sure the Colombians have a power to create cool parts of rhythm guitar, but
solos should be improved next time. All in all, this piece of music is simply
weak.
40/100
-Tlacaxipehualiztli
(previously written for Encyclopaedia Metallum, on June, 2013, now modified a bit)
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