ZOMBIEFICATION: "Midnight Stench"

Zombiefication, another rather new death metal group from Mexico, hails the 90s Swedish old school death metal scene with devotion. Everything, from the d-beats to the thick and punishing guitar sound, their debut album Midnight Stench reeks of its influences, but hey, not everyone think it’s automatically a bad thing. At least me, and those others who still find pleasure from the same patterns that the innovators crafted twenty years ago.

Considering the consciously stagnant and uncompromising style, there’s no need to go into deep details (and I don’t even know if I could as it’s hard to differentiate some tracks after hearing a ton of albums in this vein recently), but there are some moments when the Midnight Stench does visit more innovative territories. One of these is the slow-paced ”Sleepless Mutter” which vaguely flirts with melodic doom metal, a refreshing highlight in the middle of all the savage killing.

In all aspects, Midnight Stench sounds crushing: the production, that has a slight reverb, sounds massive yet raw, and the instruments are handled with professional touch though it never sounds sterile nor too careful. An album full of ass-kicking riffage, that almost evokes a picture of a primeval, bestial man with its basic instincts, needs no philosophical analyzing. By now, you know that Midnight Stench offers and you know if you’re interested or not. I might personally require something more from an album that would receive the mark of a brilliant record, but at what it does, Midnight Stench is no worse than many of its current European brothers.

3 / 5

OMISION: "In the Shadow of the Cross"

If we were to categorize countries to specific metal genres, I would put Mexico to death metal without a moment’s hesitation. That promising and blossoming has been the country’s output for a long time already, and Omision’s In the Shadow of the Cross is another addition to Mexico’s long list of old school death metal albums.

And while it doesn’t offer anything new and truly exciting (no surprise there), Omision’s debut effort is among the better albums in the field of 90s death metal, luckily not only dwelling in the Swedish inlfuences, but more prominently in suchs bands as Deicide and Incantation. The theme of anti-Christiany is fittingly carried through these savage compositions that relent only on the acoustic outro ”For Those Far Away”. Before that the listener faces ten tracks of morbid death executed with down-tuned riffs, grunted vocals and great drumwork.

The production deserves a mention here too, as it successfully evokes an atmosphere of utter darkness and evil without any overcompression. The sound is very natural and perhaps slightly low-fi for someone’s ears. The best moments of the album reside in the string of two tracks, ”Assault in the Vatican” and ”Beyond the Burning Gates”, of which the former convinces with its slow menace and the latter with its with pummelling drums and overall kick-ass riffage.

What comes to memorable compositions, after the two aforementioned songs there’s a slight downhill. As a supporter of short albums, I would have probably omitted a track or two from this whole, but I am not bored at any point anyways. Those more deeply into all kinds of old school death metal will find even more to enjoy from In the Shadow of the Cross, of that I’m sure. Do not touch this one if you’re only into the most modern and fastest extreme metals out there.

3 / 5

WARFIELD: "Trivmvirat"

With a band name like Warfield I expected to be exposured to some fast war metal bursts when I’d put on their latest offering Trivmvirat, but what we’ve got here instead is rather thoughtful yet violent black metal, not that far from Watain, and what surprises me even more is that this band hails from Mexico and not from the northern soil.

Trivmvirat kicks off with ”The Initiate”, introducing maliciously ringing high-pitched guitar picking tones with a steady drumbeat behind until the song fires to more rapid speeds, semi-low growls echoing on top. ”Divinity” attacks with belligerent blast beats right from the start, and there’s a sweet death metalish lick in the rhythm that makes it stand apart from a generic and meaningless blasting. ”Trinity” continues in the vein of the previous tracks, concluding the original EP with an atmosphere that evokes also hopelessness, thanks to that fantastic, vaguely melancholic riff in there that makes the song the highlight of the EP.

The upcoming re-release also comprises three live and one rehearsal track. The live material is sound-wise of quite low quality, so audiophiles stand aside: compared to the rather professionally (yet tastefully) produced original EP material, this is really rusty and low-fidelity, offering little to someone who wants to hear all details perfectly. The sound is a mess where cymbals (and the outstandingly monstrous drumming in general) dominate, evil riffs and vocals more in the background. ”Pestilencia” is an instrumental rehearsal track of rehearsal audio quality, indeed. Personally I think that vocals are an important role in Warfield’s music, hence I find this track a little worthless here: with vocals and more worked production, this could turn into a great song.

Trivmvirat is a positive experience in the end, mostly thanks to the original songs and not the four bonus offerings that might have little worth to many listeners. Fans of utterly violent black metal (à la Infernal War) with a touch of versatile compositional structures are recommended to look into Trivmvirat, an EP that’s absolutely nothing new but where all the good ideas of savage black metal are put to very fine use.

3.5 / 5