Review Summary: Kama Mara, a Death/Psych Metal band from Phoenix, AZ, makes their debut on the metal scene and deals great potential with a solid freshman release.
2 of 2 thought this review was well writtenA 3-piece act, Kama Mara is a band that is quickly assaulting the underground metal scene with the bellowing vocals, inventive guitars, powerful bass, and intense drumming. It's rare to see a metal act work as a 3 piece, as most value the presence of two guitars. But this band uses one quite effectively, as the bass makes it's own great impact on the music as well.
The album opener, Premonition builds an atmosphere for the tunes that are to come, with a deep feel coupled by an eerie guitar running through the 88 second track. In the background is an alien-like vocal take repeating "Soon, every soul on this earth will stand trial", which flows into the title track quiet effectively. This sounds good for the opener, but there is also Phantasmagoria, Ersatz Shaman, and Dominicide that are all purely instrumental tracks. This comes off to the listener as filler, and makes space between songs a more than necessary.
Although besides that, the other tracks on the album are very tasteful. The first 3 real songs on the album really stand out to the listener. Mortal Angst, Kali-Yuga, and Quintessence are all spectacular on all cylinders. The title track flows out of the opener quite nicely excellent bass, followed by a nice guitar riff met with drums. The whole song has quick thrashy moments and down moments, it's greatly placed as the opening song. Kali-Yuga is entirely thrashy and picks up right where the title song left off. It's one of the best songs on the album despite being sub-3 minutes.
In my opinion, the best song on the album is Quintessence. It's a monster track at 8 & nearly a half minutes and jams through from start to finish. It opens on a catching guitar lick sound after followed by a nice sounding mini bass solo. It also has a down moment where it goes into an interlude within the song which is very creative on the band's part. The drums keep the tempo heavy and fast effectively and slow down to a groove beat with a punk feel. Kama Mara couldn't have done anything wrong with this specific song, and it's a complete masterpiece.
The next two songs, To Whom This May Concern & Death Of A Fly: A Cosmic Comparative are short death-y songs that feature more prowess on each instrument. Both are about 2 minutes long and are very well done. They both have a punk feel to them with the guitar work and quick paced drumming. The drummer, Alex Morgan, does an excellent job on Death Of A Fly, it's especially precise and well done. This is followed by another interlude which isn't too long to calm down the hype built up from the previous good tracks. It goes into The Faith Of A Sheep which begins of slower paced and picks up into a feel similar to previous songs. The intro makes this one different, along with duel vocals that to me stand out much more than the previous songs. Very nice screams from both "Ugly" Adrian Medina leading & Chris "Master" Nunley.
The semi-final full track is Venomous Trance, which continues with the punk feel with the yabby sounding screams. This track sounds a more epic than most of the other songs along with Quintessence and would've been better if the vocals measured up. Not as if the vocals are bad but the instrumentals overpower the vocals in that particular song. The last full song is Spirals which opens on guitar scraping with an intelligible, interesting drum roll. It's must different sounding on the drums and is very nicely done. It's complex and very cool sounding on all instruments.
Overall, the songs carry an effective high standard on each instrument and are unpredictable which makes it interesting to listen to. The album Mortal Angst in it's entirety has elements of death metal, punk, and a big favor of stoner metal. There's one more to end the album which is the most commendable effort of the 4, it has a nice epic feel and serves well at an outro for the album.
Personnel:
Vocals (Ugly Adrian & Master Nunley): 7.5/10
Guitar (Chris "Master" Nunley): 9/10
Drums (Alex Morgan): 8.5/10
Bass ("Ugly" Adrian Medina): 8/10
Pros:
- Very talented instrumentals
- Awesome vocals for the most part
- Quintessence, Kali-Yuga, Venomous Trance
- Spectacular performance for a 3 piece band
Cons:
- Interludes
- Needs more epicness to really push the boundaries (I.E. Quintessence & Venomous Trance are a plus)
- Could do with less stoner vibes
