Date: October 17th, 2022
Label: Base Record Production
Since winter has come (to Malmö the light one, with less than one centimeter snow and it seems this is already over, by the way) I think this is quite a good idea to move to Barcelona for a while. Of course we won’t do it because of several monuments, Sagrada Familia or one of the best football, and not only, clubs of the world or at least Europe. We’ll do it because the reason is the most, and maybe even the only, important one for us – metal music. This city was always and still is home for many metalheads and, of course, good bands presenting all sub-genres of metal you can even name. The one I’ll write about at the moment, actually about its last full-length released October, 17th by Base Record Production on CD, is one of the veterans. Well, they had more than ten years break in existence, but most of the members (four on five) can remember this first period, so calling them veterans or even living legends of the local scene is in my opinion accurate.
“Chaosmakers” is their third, and second album after resurrection in 2015. And just in the beginning I need to tell you contrary to the title we don’t have to do with any chaos on here! Well, in this positive meaning definitely this is like that. You know, for many non metalheads our beloved music is chaos and noise only. Anyways, it contains nine tracks taking a little more than forty minutes. The longest of them is “Devil’s Food (The Sacred Reich)” and the shortest – “Madness in a Merciless Mind”, but they’re still not too long (5.08) or too short (3.55). But you can+ and even should ask: “bit what kind of Metal they play for fuck sake?”, because I still didn’t told you what kind of our beloved music we have to do here with. Actually I somehow think it isn’t too easy to guess it even after watching the cover art at all because artwork can suggest our friends of Barcelona (Hail Juanjo, my Metal brother!) have something to do with old school thrash metal in vein of the legendary band where Tom Angelripper is the only original member – since 1981. And this is not true, at least when it’s about music they play. To be honest, the term “old school” is accurate as hell here! But the name of the sub-genre isn’t. I mean, those five guys from the capital city of Catalonia serve us death metal in old, good American, but also Swedish style as well. It also reminds me in some way of a band coming from Madrid, a living legend of the Spanish scene (and not only the death metal one, especially vocalist Dave is very well-known because of his other activities – I mean labels he created, first of all). At the same time there’s a really huge element of grindcore or probably better to say: goregrind in this music – difference between mentioned genres is more about lyric side then music, by the way. At this point I somehow connect it with some dead band coming from New York. I think, actually I am sure you know what band I mean and that’s why I don’t have to name their cult albums, especially two first ones that are like that. Creativity of Juanjo, Tito, Juanma, Sergi and Joxe also is full of technique, technique who’s a slave of brutality, by the way!
Of course there are some differences and Teratoma has its own style, but it doesn’t change the fact you can hear some influences or similarities. By the way, in the beginning, I mean, when I had begun to listen to “Chaosmakers” I was like “What the hell! Did they change style?” It wasn’t about I didn’t like what I heard, absolutely not! But it still was something totally different then you can find on their two another full-lengths. Actually I connected it directly with some song of Belgian legend of grindcore, or like Jan calls it, mincecore (I know differences between grindcore and mincecore for sure, even if they can be quite subtle, but there’s no place to explain them, I guess). Anyways, quite soon I noticed I have exactly what I expected – music butchery with a huge element of technique, which’s about all instruments. This is as clear as a day. It’s the best hearable in the case of guitars, several tricks,but if you listen to it carefully then you’ll agree with me. Tempo is mostly fast as hell, but there’s some middle one, too. I could, and probably it would even be better if I did it, write more and with more details, but I simply am too lazy to do it… Besides, I think it’s not my job at all. I mean, my job is first of all to tell you if the album is well, very well or average. And “Chaosmakers” is very well done in my opinion! So all fans of extreme music are obligated to have this in their collection.
