From the label that brought us Flamenco inspired deathcore in Bolu2Death and some blackened crust in Absenta, comes 2 more releases a little more similar to each other. Both from Spain, we have Goddamn and Blinded For Lies, both residing in the metalcore realm, but both being rather good- if you are into that sort of thing.

First up, with their debut Unity, Blinded For Lies deliver a late 90s/early 00s take on Americanized metalcore. Imagine Unearth (Circa The Oncoming Storm) but delivered with some extra beef. And by extra beef I mean that the guitar tone and many, many breakdowns are downright devastating. SO much so, they often bottomed out on any device I was listening too.

Other bands I hear are Beyond The Sixth Seal‘s 2002 debut Earth and Sphere, mainly due to the gruff but understandable vocals of Nico Martín who sounds a lot like Mike McKenzie. The guitars are thick and heavy, delivering either solid dual melody gallops akin to the bands of the mid 00s (Killswitch Engage, Hamartia, Spiritus Sancti etc), or some really impressive breakdowns. And, (I never thought I’d say this) these are actually very ‘old school’ breakdowns that recall the mid 00s as opposed to the overdone, overly chugging down tempo ones of today. But the guitar tone certainly adds a little something extra for the modern deathcore fan.

With the likes of “Dream Breaker”, “Wasteland”, “Father”, ” Astray” and no ballads or clean vocals, (only a short outro in alone breaks rank), Unity ended up being a fun little release for me, especially as I got into reviewing for digitalmetal.com in 2001/2002, right as modern metalcore was blowing up and every other release I got for review was some sort of ‘core’ release. This would have got a decent review then, and I m happy to give it one now.

[Visit the band's website]

---

Comments