Introducing Galicia's Finest - Deathwalking: Infectados
“Infectados”
is the latest album release from Deathwalking. They are part of a rare
breed too, a Galician/Spanish death metal outfit. Hailing from an area
of the world that’s probably better known for its soft, wispy, bagpipe
driven folk music than anything else, they do not come much rarer than
these guys. When all’s said and done, is Infectados worth the time and
trouble of a listen though?
Infectados at a glance
First things first, Deathwalking are a duo that consist of Michael Sult
on lead guitar and Ederon Korst on lead vocals and guitar. They formed
in 2007 and this is their first full length album. Released on 7th March,
the album consists of nine tracks and has a running time of around
forty five minutes. A preview of the album in it's entirety is available
through YouTube, so you can click and have a listen to a little bit of
each of the tracks first before you decide whether you want to buy it:
The album starts with the growling, low slung, infectious “Cae” which is
a slow burning thrash that threatens you by the jugular, draws you in
and sets you up for the rest of the album.
The second track “Skully” starts off with a really well paced guitar
part that actually makes you believe for a moment you’re not listening
to death metal at all and that you were hearing something that was
perhaps a little more lame indie-schmindie than anything else. However,
it’s a falsehood, the track kicks in properly and lets you know it’s
wrong footed you. This is what Deathwalking seem to do quite well, not
only in this track but the album as a whole. They trick you into
thinking they’re something else, then you’re really quite surprised when
you hear the tracks in full.
“Esquecer”
is a guttural epic, throat grabbing and bloody. For the entire three
and a half minutes the track lasts it brings the hairs up on the back of
your neck and makes your bones shake.
The
mid point of the album sees a track called “Regresion”, which again,
starts off in an almost delicate way, bringing you down from the
strength of the other songs, before the beat kicks in again to let you
know you can’t be lulled into a false sense of security for too long.
It’s got such a strong guitar part at it’s heart and feels so well
composed and driven. It’s also really well placed in the album too,
offering a few brief moments of calm before the next track called “No
Bosque” kicks in, which is a thrashy and punked up affair, rushing
between high octane guitars and slowed down verses which again, give
this feeling of being totally wrong footed by the band. You’re never
sure where they’re going to take you from one track to the next. Just as
you’re starting to speed up listening to them, they decide to
completely alter the pace. Surprisingly, it works really well.
The
final track “Fragua” is a total departure from the rest of the tracks,
it shows you just what great musicians are actually at the heart of the
band, with an instrumental that is almost heartbreaking in it’s beauty
and really does leave you wanting to hear more from them. A word of note
is that just when you think it’s all over, the track kicks back in
again, so keep listening right to the end.
Is it worth a listen?
It’s a really weird thing in many ways, listening to the hard edged,
driven guitar sound, flanked by lyrics that are teeth rattlingly
bellowed in their native
Spanish language. Apart from the fact you might need a set of
Spanish textbooks to
translate the songs into English so you can have some notion of what
they're talking about, it doesn’t really detract from the sound at all.
Far from it, it means that they stand out just that little bit more and
hearing what is, ostensibly such a graceful and florid language shouted
out and bellowed in an almost blood curdling way gives it that real
extra edge. It should sound comical, but it just doesn’t. From the very
moment the album kicks in with “Cae” through to the end track “Fragua”
it’s an aural soundscape that just finds a way of drawing you in and
shaking your bones through to the core. Well worth a little bit of your
time if you want something that's a bit different.
(Reviewed by EVE)
Please Welcome Eve with this debut review for Robustfellow.
Download Infectados from:
Visit the band's pages at:
