It seems like only last week I was sitting down to review the debut release of an international death metal band. Oh wait, it was. This time around the act is Disembowel, not to be confused with the nine thousand other bands of the same name; this one though is hailing from Chile. Racking my brains and having a brief scan of my ITunes library (oh fuck off I’m not a streaming services kind of delinquent death metal fan), it occurred to me that I don’t think I’ve really heard any Chilean metal, so I guess this is a first for me in at least one respect.
Plagues and Ancient Rites musically takes a tonne of influence from the early days of Morbid Angel and the first two, maybe three Death albums and an absolute heap from the acclaimed works of revolutionary literature madman H.P. Lovecraft, along with every metal band since forever.
I admit, first impressions were good; the interesting if bizarre opener ‘Innsmouth Evocation’ led me to believe I’d be in for something a bit more ‘out there’. Five songs later I realised I’d become really interested in a strange scrape mark on the side of my desk. Oh dear.
Nothing about Plagues and Ancient Rites is by any means bad. It’s about as beige as a prison wall and has about as many original ideas in its head. It’s solidly constructing with a smattering of decent riffs and grooves, but nothing consistent or attention-capturing to link the ideas together; like a cake without flour. It has little personality of its own and I found the second half of the record really trying my patience once I’d cottoned onto the fact that I’d heard it all before by every death metal band ever.
This review is going to end up pretty low on the word count end but I am really struggling to find anything to say at all.
Maybe I expect too much from music these days? I fully admit that I am at the best of times hard to please, and as I said before, there’s nothing inherently wrong with this album, and for a debut release it somewhat has its head on straight. The productions pretty solid and carries the atmosphere well in that murky way that many old school death metal bands did, but it lacks so much in character of what those albums did. It’s definitely crafted out of love and enthusiasm for the art form rather than for sakes sake, so that’s a plus point.
If Plagues and Ancient Rites set out to shadow closely the footsteps of old school death metal titans and is content to sit in that comfort zone, then its hit that mark no problem. If it was aiming for something a bit more memorably and original, I’m sorry to say it missed with the same degree of accuracy as an coked-up American sharpshooter recovering from botched eye surgery.
3/10
