Review Summary: Born without a life and still unable to die
we slowly agonize
I’ve always loved atmosphere Black Metal but it can be very difficult to find bands and albums that surprise you in this genre. Sometimes you’ll find sounds you like but all in all, it does sound like other bands you listen to. Sometimes it’s the voice, the guitar, the atmosphere and some other times, it all just blows your mind. That is what happened at my first listen of Los Males Del Mundo’s first release « Descent Towards Death », during the pre-release listen on a popular Black Metal YouTube channel. Los Males Del Mundo is an Argentinian band consisting of Dany Tee on vocals (Downfall Of Nur, Acathexis) and Christian Yans on guitars. Nikita Kamprad (Der Weg Einer Freiheit) played Bass as a guest on this record. This album came after their first release, a self-titled EP of two songs that was used as way to fund the recording of this album.
Although starting on a rather slow pace, this album is full of moments with various sounds and atmosphere, from modern atmospheric metal to a 90’s Black Metal vibe. All of that can be found on their first song « Falling Into Nothing ». The combination of the guitars and Dany Tee’s voice on the chorus brings a heaviness that gives a good contrast with the beginning of the song. Using high pitched screams and lower growls, vocals are one of the standouts of this record. For those of you who have already listening to some of Downfall Of Nur or Actathexis, you know that his voice goes very high then very low depending on the general atmosphere, it always transcends the emotions conveyed by the lyrics. A good example of this would be the screaming toward the ten-minute mark of the opener.
Another standout on this record would be the guitar work. Ranging form slower paced atmosphere to faster tremolos they are with the drums what keeps the album energetic and what keeps the listener headbanging. There is a big work on composition and song structures and that keeps the listener from being bored or songs from getting too repetitive. The addition of solos on “Eternal Cycle of Vain Efforts” and “The Heavy Burden” are also some high moments of this album.
Inspired by Nietzsche, Cioran and Schopenhauer the lyrics are entirely focusing on the dark feeling of life, the agony, suffering of living to die. Although being very depressing, the lyrics are far from being caricatural. As said before, they are inspired by well known philosophers and are deeply rooted in psychology. They describe what we all feel on our darkest moments and the questions we have when we can’t find any meaning in our life and criticize the way we act to make us feel better. For example, the last verse of this album (“The Heavy Burden”):
“And as an effective consolation in all misfortune / we direct our gaze towards another's misadventure / a hypocritical remedy available to all / ignoring that our pathetic existence / is the comfort of someone else's gaze”
This first full-length effort by Los Males Del Mundo is already a good contender in the best Atmospheric Black Metal release and its only March (it was released in February), which says a lot about the quality of this album. Getting recognition in most of the black metal community, we can only hope this is the first of many outstanding albums.
