Two things that must have become evident to Desert Psychlist readers over the years is firstly the Psychlist's love of doom residing at the traditional, proto, stoner and psych ends of the spectrum and secondly our passion for promoting bands from the South and Central American continent. Today we get a chance to indulge in both of those passions by reviewing "Nunca bastó con rezar" the latest release from Chilean masters of the down-tuned riff Heráldica de Mandrake, Francisco Visceral Rivera (guitar/vocals); Cristian Rivera (drums/percussion) and Vicente Zamorano (bass).
"
Nunca bastó con rezar" starts its journey with "
Incertidumbre y gloria" a song that opens low slow dank and
stoner doomic and then suddenly shifts up a gear into a strident
proto metallic groove,
Desert Psychlist's first thought here was to describe this groove as
Sabbathian but on closer inspection this is a groove much more akin to that of bands like
Witchfinder General,
Trouble and early
Cirith Ungol, bands who mixed their
doom with elements of
NWOBHM and old school
heavy metal. The vocals, sang in
Spanish, however have their own unique stamp, clean powerful and delivered with just a hint of gothic resonance they are nothing short of superb! "
Jamás Domesticado" follows and the feel here is much more traditional and epic with basement level bass and a mix of militaristic and four to the floor drumming supporting dark searing guitar work beneath another rich toned vocal, this however is just one part of the whole as around the halfway mark things take an unexpected turn into lysergic territories that sees fractured guitar voicings shimmering over and around mournful dirge-like vocal melodies to give the remainder of the song an almost spiritual/ritualistic dynamic. That spiritual/ritualistic vibe continues into the deeply atmospheric and psychedelic "Peca y Sé Libre" only here those melodies take on a more Gregorian/monastic feel, again this is only half the story as its not long before things start getting a little heady and heavy with
Vicente Zamorano laying down a gnarly-assed bass line, supported by some nice jazzy drumming from
Cristian Rivera, over which
Francisco Visceral Rivera layers all sorts of off centred guitar effects and textures, if you like your
doom to get a little weird and wonderful in places then this song is a go to! Final number "
Ebrio en el Fin del Mundo" sees Heráldica de Mandrake at their most atmospheric and epic but also at their most diverse, here we have a song that changes direction more times than a kite caught in a crosswind, shifting back an forth between grooves that run the whole gamut of
doom, bar its extremities, around a vocal that is as emotive as it is powerful, its an awesome album closer!
On occasions hard driven and crunchy and on occasions atmospheric, spiritual and experimental
Heráldica de Mandrake's "
Nunca bastó con rezar" is not what you could call an archetypical
doom album it is however still a
SUPERB doom album, an album that will tick the boxes of all those who like their
doom accessible but are also not adverse to a spot of boundary pushing.
Check it out ....
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