De La Tierra- Self Titled (2014)

De La Tierra- Self Titled (2014)

Honestly, I came to this recording with very low expectations, as two members of this band, in fact its rhythm section, comes from worlds opposed to heavy music, I don’t deny that Sr. Flavio, Los Fabulosos Cadillacs bassist is a great musician, and that he has laid some heavy grooves in certain songs of LFC, specially on their powerful Los Fabulosos Calavera, but that doesn’t qualify him as a metal musician, and the fact that the drummer is a part of Mexican band Mana is even difficult to take, as Mana is known as a shameful pop band here in the country.

Stangely enough, but men do a decent job on the recording and the fault is found in Andres Gimenez, as he handles the vocals in the record with an absolutely annoying snarl, his vocal style sounds so awful that makes the recording almost insufferable, definitely making him the biggest flaw in this band.

And De La Tierra is not a so flawed band, as Sepultura main guitar man Andreas Kisser uses the extra space in the mix to laid down a bunch of really diverse riffing, the man is heavy as fuck, but he takes a good chance at the absence of his Sepultura cohorts to expand his exotic guitar sound, as shown in the great intro to this recording, a piece of classical influenced acoustic guitar, and later with an over the top heavy riffing that introduce us to Somos Uno, a tune that sets the stage for the “goove metal” approach taken by De La Tierra, whom I dare to say seemed decided to bring back to life some of the former glory claimed by Kisser and Sepultura on the experimental Roots, although obviously, here without Max and Igor, the band simply fails short on their attempt, as Kisser might be a great guitarist but he can’t do much in order to save the rest of the song, yes, his guitars fly, but the tune lacks enough muscle and Gimenez vocals sound more obsessed with style rather than on truly throat bleeding fury.

Rostros expose Alex Gonzalez clumsy drumming, he can play pretty fast rhythms and he sounds energetic, which is a good surprise, but when the beats get locked and he has to resolve in order to take the song to the next level, he simply ends up with less than spectacular results, and as with much of the tunes the songs simply start to fall apart, no matter how much energy Kisser or Flavio seem to inject, and Flavio comes just like a great surprise as the man plays really heavy bass and keeps a truly rocky bottom for the songs, and when it comes to exotic Latin sounding beats, like in San Asesino, Flavio and Alex sound outstanding, as the sound obviously runs thru their veins, and Kisser`s guitars roars furiously every second, and then detouring to some really nasty guitar lines, in what might be one of the highlights of the record, no matter how much Gimenez does to sink the ship, here, Flavio, Alex and Kisser manage to conjure a powerful groove, so powerful that sounds almost indestructible.

Andreas Kisser powerful guitar showing explodes again on Detonar, although Alex shows some clumsy beats (although on the intro to the following song Maldita Historia he sounds monstrous) here that sends the tune nowhere although Gimenez work here sounds less annoying finally managing to create a single memorably and not annoying vocal line, and then on Maldita Historia Kisser and Gonzalez simply sound terrific on the fast and furious parts.

There are other great tunes in the recording like Corran and Cosmonauta Quechua, but the recording simply falls very short form crossing any transcendental territory, in fact it sound more like an artifact of the past, than a fledging innovative metal combo, perhaps its members weren’t the right choices given the fact that people like Alberto Pimentel from Transmetal o Joel Alanìs de Mortuary might been the right choices for vocals and a heavy metal drummer like Andres Saenz form Maligno could have made this combo a true and ferocious metal beast instead of this regrettable defeated born creature.