Xibalba: Madre Mia Gracias Por Los Dias

California's Xibalba's brand of hard-hitting, breakdown-heavy hardcore exhibits a number of metal influences that, thankfully, stops Madre Mia Gracias Por Los Dias straying off into the predictable patterns of that perpetually slighted genre, deathcore. Instead, this bunch of hardcore-worshipping bastardos revere the almighty groove and infuse their stripped-to-the-knuckle hardcore with as much sincerity and extremity as they can pack in to each song. Dark and negative, this lump of thug metal has a deep and plodding sound and every song begins with a levelled force that never deviates. The songs build up, break down, and the riffs could easily tear the face off of an unsuspecting passer-by, but after about five tracks, that feeling of déjà vu makes too common an appearance. The songs sound too much alike to be differentiated from each other. The problem is the lack of variation in tempo and the sheer abundance of – maybe even dependency on – breakdowns make the album a struggle to digest in one go. It's not tedious, by any means, but the mistake made is that being heavy equates with being creative. But damn it, the grooves are huge! Live, when this horde of heavyweights hurl out these songs with runway-scraping vocals, earth-shatteringly low tunings, and all-out aggression, there're gonna be a few casualties. Like he says in 'Fallen', "Oh man, this is going to hurt." Not a great album, but not a bad one either. Give 'em a listen.

Track Listing

1. Bright Sun
2. Madre Mia
3. Never Kneel
4. Fallen
5. Time's up
6. We Deserve to Die
7. Red
8. Obituary
9. Cold
10. Spanish Harlem
11. Cursed
12. Salvation

Added: June 25th 2011
Reviewer: Jason Guest
Score:
Related Link: Band MySpace
Hits: 4463
Language: english

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