The hot suburbs of Belo Horizonte shook with tremors as the satanic presence penetrated the walls of the Catedral da Boa Viagem. Dirty underground scoundrels gave bloody birth to Brazil’s death thrash phenomenon that was about span dozens of malicious LP’s of metal music released by Cogumelo Records consumed with thousands of liters of cheap alcohol that caused physical uproars of vomit, feces and mayhem. As with the majority of death metal classics, this music is a product of a group of young men having turned off their lobe of sanity, possibly by watching too much demonic possession horror movies and consuming every second of available music by bands such as Ratos de Porão, Hellhammer, Slayer and Terveet Kädet with a great deal of childish wide-eyed attention.
Neo-classical hardcore/thrash riff master Andreas Kisser is not yet in the band so his space is filled by the chaotic and fragmentary lo-fi signals of Max Cavalera’s unstable staccato rhythm guitar and the bursting leads of Jairo G., who later joined The Mist. Max’s vocals are the barks of a hostile Rottweiler or a species of South American wolf unknown to man, with a sharp rhythmic aggression no-one mastered with such bestiality as the hardcore punks and thrashers of this geographic region. The anarchist battery performed by his brother is a stupendous amalgamation of uncontrolled blastbeats still rare in this genre of music but hybridized by merging the messy Finnish hardcore/noise percussion heard in Kaaos and Kuolema with the more structured corpse puncturation of Dave Lombardo. Nearly none of the beautiful symmetry of “Beneath the Remains” exists here, as we are witnessing something like the primal life that arose in the jungles of the Mesozoic era, as plants, insects and reptiles grow, swarm, bite and rot in the ever-spinning cycles of evolution and death. I recommend this album for the brutals, as there is a reason it’s not called “Progressive Visions”.
Max Cavalera missed…
But very very great work… THis is amazing long play album
Comment by PingOfDeath — February 17, 2010 @ 17:29
One of my personal favourite records. “Bestial Devastation” is excellent complementary listening as well.
Comment by Harold Shipman — February 18, 2010 @ 12:50