With first album ’Tlazcaltiliztli’, Tzompantli called forth a penetrating strike of Death and Doom Metal like a poisoned arrow through the heart. The band’s foundation in Indigenous / Native rituals, history and lore, and merging of traditional instruments into their sound made for one of 2022’s most uniquely voiced metal records.

Now Tzompantli have again been summoned from the smoke of the ancient fires with a new offering at the altar of human sacrifice, ‘Beating the Drums of Ancestral Force’. Fearsomely brutal marches of war-like, percussive Death Metal are contrasted with melancholy passages of longing spirit and entrancing ceremonial invocations to the ancestors. The Tzompantli tribe has greatly expanded on this second album with 10+ musicians enlisted in the conjuring of wrathful deities and collection of invader skulls.

There has been no shortage of fantastic Death/Doom records in recent years and Tzompantli’s latest entry in the genre’s pantheon demonstrates its continued expansion into wider musical and thematic arenas. The anguished fortitude at the heart of ‘Beating The Drums of Ancestral Force’ exalts in the blood and ash of empire and would be conquerors, a fiery lamentation to centuries of erasure.

Indigenous death/doom collective Tzompantli will release their second full length, Beating the Drums of Ancestral Force, on May 17 through 20 Buck Spin.

This is pretty meh. A more distinct Mesoamerican flavor would make it more interesting, it's mostly tuneless thumping. I mean it would be boring whatever the theme were, but the window dressing of the project suggests it's going to be something with more of a particular identity.

This is pretty meh. A more distinct Mesoamerican flavor would make it more interesting, it's mostly tuneless thumping. I mean it would be boring whatever the theme were, but the window dressing of the project suggests it's going to be something with more of a particular identity.