Okay you all would have heard of the website bandcamp.com, but if you haven't it's basically a website that up and coming artist can use to promote their music. You can download music from many artists on there, there are quite a few astonishing bands on the site. Downloading albums, EPs, LPs, tracks and other music can be either free, name your price (basically free but you can choose to pay for it), or it has a solid price.
This week I've stumbled across the band Montezuma and their album 'II', and let me say that it is a true masterpiece of Death Metal. And after finding this album I've decided that each week I'll be writing a review for an artist on bandcamp.com, and to kick it off I'm going to review 'II'.
Montezuma is a five piece band from Newhall, California.
'II' is Montezuma's 2nd album and it has 4 tracks:
1. Prehistoric Hyperblast
2. Tombs
3. Bone Dust
4. Psychotic Astronomy
The first track 'Prehistoric Hyperblast' is a truly groovy straight forward Death Metal song with rich bass lines, galloping drums, brutal riffs and crushing vocals. The bass lines on the song are what first caught my attention because in a lot of bands now days they just mix the bass guitar out completely whereas this band have found the perfect balance of the guitars and bass. The drumming at the start of this song got me head banging from the get go and the riffs in 'Prehistoric Hyperblast' are extremely groovy and gets your blood pumping. The only let down in my opinion is that the vocals aren't explored enough, yes the vocals are low, crushing and brutal but you get almost nothing else. If there were some blood curdling highs or at least some mids to mix things up it would make this track far better.
Track number 2 'Tombs' is a stand out track to me almost purely for the awesome guitar solo in it, the solo put me in full eargasm mode. You know that feeling when you're listening to your favourite solo from your favourite guitarist? Yeah that's what I was feeling, the solo wasn't too boring and wasn't too technical that it lost all it's soul. Yet again the bass lines are immaculate, so are the drums and yes again the guitars were groovy.
'Bone Dust' The vocals on this track aren't anything different from the first 2 tracks but I think that the instrumentals and vocals complement each other very very well. The guitar work is yet again awesome and there are some very thrashy sounding riffs in there which sound great. The bass lines don't stand out on this song as much as the first two but still accompanies the rest of the instruments extremely well. My favourite part of the album would have to be the outro because the tone of the guitars and the bass just sounds awesome together.
'Psychotic Astronomy' is the fastest track on the album with an extremely thrash inspired sound, it still has some quite groovy passages to headbang too. This track has some truly awesome guitar sweeps, and to me is the stand out track drumming wise. Just like all the other tracks the bass lines are awesome, the vocals are yet again purely deep (yes they are very awesome lows) but there is no build up to an epic high or a lower low which is kind of a let down but the vocals are still great in their own respects, I just prefer a mix of highs, mids and lows.
Vocals : 6/10 (I would have liked to hear some more experimenting but the vocals still hold their own)
Guitars: 9/10 (Brilliant sweeps and riffs, the solo in Tombs is awesome)
Bass: 10/10 (Personally the bass guitar is my favourite aspect of the album)
Drums: 7/10 (The drumming is very accurate and very well done but it is fairly basic at times which is a let down)
Overall: 8/10
The album is about as intense as a four track album can be, with brilliant sweeps, bass lines and riffing. Vocals are brutal but don't show much besides lows (there are a few highs which are quite enjoyable).
The drumming is great but I have a habit of comparing drummers to Thomas Haake of Meshuggah and Brann Dailor of Mastodon. The band has some progressive elements too it as well which gives it some unique character.
The album is definitely worth a listen to!
Download here: http://montezuma1.bandcamp.com/album/ii
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Montezuma661?fref=ts
Thanks for reading and make sure to comment what you think of the album or suggest a band I should listen to and review.
~Tyler
No comments:
Post a Comment