Review Summary: Like some of life's endeavors, this album has a strong opening and a terrible close.
In order to better help you understand Sublagrimal, you should be given some background information on the project. Well unfortunately there really isn’t any to be found. It’s a dark electro/terror EBM project that is of Hispanic or Mexican origin. The music is dark, twisted and almost evil. There aren’t a whole lot of vocals to go around so it can get monotonous at certain points. The lyrics that are present are spit out in a harsh delivery that makes them almost inaudible because they just about melt in with the beats and get lost.
The album starts out fantastic with some eerie samples, soundscapes and some crushing beats. The first song is layered throughout with industrial/electro beats. Judging by the first sound of the album one can tell right away that this is dark electro. It’s not so much EBM as one could misconstrue. This album is a short one too, with 10 songs clocking in at just over a half hour. Some of the songs can get a bit repetitive due to the absence of vocals but it all works out. The second song has some great samples over a redundant beat that is unrelenting.
The third song “Azacod” starts out with a spoken word narrative that you can’t really understand and then goes into some more heavy beats. Honestly there isn’t much more you can think about when listening to this album than to analyze the beats. “Dawn of the Earth” is the best song out of the 10 of them. The beats aren’t so much blasting and heavy as they are regular and repetitive. Mix in some vocals that sound like a minion escaping from hell and you’ve got yourself quite the song. Overall this song has the best composure and one of the better atmospheres on the album.
There are also two songs on the album that have some Spanish words used in the titles which is where the Mexican influence comes in. Whether or not that influence is used in the music production is up for debate due to the incomplete background information on this act. The sixth track “Dioxide En Tu Sangre” has the heaviest beats off the album. Sounding more like a house/techno act than industrial, the song carries the blast beat throughout and never lets up. The end of the album seems to change drastically as the music goes from industrial to more of a noise/ambient atmosphere. Not that it’s terrible but it just doesn’t go with the flow of the rest of the album at this point.
We finish up the album with some more noise areas, our first sign of actual instruments with a few cymbal crashes and some horror movie samples of a girl screaming. Overall what you are going to get from listening to this album is a solid opening and a forgettable close. With the absence of lyrics and sustainable vocals, Mental Execution leaves nothing more to be desired. If you’re looking for a quick, noisy listen then go ahead and try this yourself. For the ones that prefer to stick to industrial that is of higher quality you might want to steer away from this one.
