Title: Archaic Visions of the Underworld
Genre: Black/Death metal with Thrash metal elements
Time: 33 min
Year: 2016
Rating: 90/100
Believe it or not, “Archaic Visions of the Underworld” is the very first release from a Paraguayan metal band that I ever listened in my entire life. It looks that Paraguay has some great bands but we mustn’t forget that it is a South American country, and everyone of us knows that the South America offers systematically high quality bestial metal since the Brazilians Stress released their homonym proto-thrash metal debut album in 1982. Master of Cruelty, a quartet founded in 2009 in the Paraguayan capitol Asuncion, aren’t an exception considering that with “Archaic Visions of the Underworld”, released on 25th November 2016 by the Swedish label Blood Harvest, have created a true masterpiece of pure South American fury!
The infernal journey into the second album of Master of Cruelty starts with “Mortem Prima Lex”, a very fuckin’ dark intro with sinister melodies comprised of spectral keyboards, acoustic arpeggios guitar and malign whisperers, and all this is perfect to introduce the massacre of the entire album starting from the same titletrack, its very first song. From here the Master of Cruelty crushes everything with a merciless and sulfurous assault dubbed by the same band as “Blackened Death/Thrash”. But, in my opinion, the black and death metal elements prevails on the thrash ones into their music, excluded into songs where these 3 genres are combined perfectly, as it’s happens with the conclusive “Knowledge Beyond this Dimension”.
The black
metal side is very important on this album, especially in a track like “Mythological
Creatures”, where there is a very good performance by the new bassist Vomitor.
I mean “very important” not only because this full-length is full of freezing
black metal riffs but also because it has good atmospheric moments created by
some lead guitar riffs or by some devilish melodies (“Perpetual Deadly Hollows”).
At the other side, “Archaic Visions of the Underworld” spews forth a bunch of
annihilating violence in pure South American vein. The main example of this is
given by “Our Endless Wrath”, a programmatic title for a totally skullcrushing
song where the blast-beat is a sanguinary faith, despite this track starts
slowly. Moreover, “Our Endless Wrath” contains also a chaotic but incredibly
hallucinated solo guitar by courtesy of the blonde vocalist/guitarist A.G.V.,
that plays solos only when it needs showing off gut-wrenched and raucous vocals
inspired by the same Lord of the Underworld.
As I said before, Master of Cruelty is the first Paraguayan metal band that I ever listened but, at this point and considering that their music is incredibly devastating, I wonder why the metal scene of Paraguay isn’t well known by the metal maniacs of the entire world. Raw and ultra-violent as commands the South American tradition but, at the same time, dynamic and enough atmospheric, Master of Cruelty have been recently the honor to share the stage with some of the superstars of the South American black metal as the Brazilians Mystifier. As last thing, know that “Archaic Visions of the Underworld” is available in 3 formats: on vinyl by Blood Harvest, on CD by the Jappo label Deathrash Armageddon and on tape by the Colombian Triumvirate of Evil. Is it enough for you to celebrate the abominable gestures of MAESTRO DE LA CRUDELDAD?
Tracklist:
1 – Mortem Prima
Lex2 – Archaic Visions of the Underworld
3 – The Executioner
4 – Spheres of Time
5 – Our Endless Wrath
6 – Perpetual Deadly Hollows
7 – Mythological Creatures
8 – Knowledge Beyond this Dimension
Line-up:
A.G.V. –
vocals/lead guitarsW. Impaler – rhythm guitars
Vomitor – bass
The Vandalic – drums
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