Weird. The output volume on this thing is so insanely quiet. But anyway, this Mexican act plays rather interesting melodic death metal that is in no way properly represented by either the messy recording or the hideous presentation. The layout is pretty terrible. The text is just barely large enough to read, which I'm okay with, but all of the illustrations are embarrassingly childish. Seriously, they look like they were done by a 10-year-old kid with a penchant for monsters or something. No thanks. The lyrics are hard to make sense of but do reference war and hell and whatnot, so... do the math. The music though isn't so bad. There are tons of tempo changes from blasting drums and thrashing guitars to chunkier rhythms or even some thick clean guitars layered in with the distortion. A lot of the faster passages are a little frantic with some quirky time signatures and discordant note choices, and there are also some chaotic leads ala Slayer or early Deicide or something along those lines (though sloppier). I like the subtle use of melody, though. There are some interesting things going on. I just wish the recording was more beneficial to what they have to offer. It's just too messy to make out what's going on. You can hear all of the instruments, not evenly, but they can be discerned. But something about the mix has a lot of excess noise involved, and the coarse vocal growls are too far out front, further obscuring the already rough music. The recording on the last two tracks is slightly more balanced, but the bass is still hard to hear, the keyboards in "Wing's Eye" are really obnoxious (the other songs don't use keyboards), and the percussion is far more rigid and overpowering. I don't know... the sound quality really destroys this one. I don't like the two older songs from 1998, so I wouldn't have bothered re-releasing those on this EP. The two new songs are promising but the recording kills it for me. I'd like to hear a few songs from this band with a cleaner sound and a more professional visual aesthetic.
[Sempiternal]
Running time - 16:51, Tracks: 4
[Notable tracks: A Fury Path of Blood]
Sempiternal Productions - http://www.sempiternalproductions.com
