Vidres A La Sang
Endins
8.3
Synopsis:
You know what you are risking when you blindly sign up to review an album. Sometimes you get blindsided by complete garbage, however, once in a while you get rewarded with something amazing. I’d like to introduce you to Spain’s Vidres A La Sang.
Review:
Literally meaning “Crystals in the Blood”, I had zero knowledge or expectations for this Spanish band (based a little on Extreem's history also), and signed up for it merely because my mother is Spanish and I try to at least show some interest in anything relating to that culture.
What we have here is an extremely impressive mix of progressive death metal and melodic black metal, perfectly mixed and balanced between sweeping blastbeats and off kilter, textural death metal complexity. The overall sound comes across as a sort of latter era Death or Pestilence meets Naglfar and other similar melodic black metal acts. The deeper vocals of Eloi, keep things sort of brutal while the riffs are blackened majesty and the solos are more proggy death. On paper, an odd mix, I know, but this very talented four-piece pull it off admirably.
First off, to this band's credit, Endins has two of the better songs I’ve heard this year, although the album as a whole never quite matches the blackened brilliance of both opener “Amb Tota Rancúnia “(With All Resentment) and closer “Tots Els Paisatges Són Iguals” (All Landscapes are the Same), which contain some of the best riffs I have heard recently. The other 4 lengthy (all the songs range from 6-8 minutes), more death metal based songs like “Identitat” and especially the complex “Torna al Teu Clos” (Back to Your Shell) are at least of a pretty high quality, certainly warranting purchase of the whole album.
The Spanish lyrics may put some off, but musically as well as production wise, Vidres A La Sang has very few flaws. If you can’t simply admire the closing track “Tots Els Paisatges Són Iguals” (All Landscapes Are the Same) with its rousing opening and closing furious riffage and mid song complexity, and tell me it isn’t one of the better songs you have heard recently, I’ll smack my wife’s ass with a dead herring (a win/win for me really).
If you are looking for an obscure band that’s simply top notch from a surprising origin, I highly recommend Vidres A La Sang and their impressive second effort, Endins.
