SOUTHERN LORD 29th May 2020
Hoarsely shouty vocals buried in a torrent of speeding drums and doomy guitar. Normally the sort of thing I have limited time for but there is something exciting about this that has seen me play it twice in a day. Heavy riffs and tsunamis of drumming that will have been a blur of arms in the making pummel my ears. It isn’t anything strikingly new but it’s done exceptionally well and that makes it a treat.
Xibalba are from California and Mexican influences will show. It probably helps that I can’t make out any of the words but I’m guessing they are in Spanish, thanks to the titles that translate into things like The Injustice, Saint Death, Years In The Inferno, In Obscurity and The Abyss. So, no love songs, eh? Thankfully they are intended, I assume, as part of the vicious onslaught of sound, full of boomy low-end, heavy thunder breakdowns, aggression and drums that have an almost-swing to them.
I’ll say it again; ultra-loud, ultra-doomy, ultra-fast at times, heavy as all hell and disciplined into a perfect exemplar of the genre.