Pasado y presente

Acero’s debut is some kind of compilation, it features songs from a wide era (1985-2002), and that’s why some of them sound more “classic” than the ones featured on their next album, but that’s another story.

“Pasa La Raya”, “Libertad”, “Rey Del Rock n’ Roll” and “Reina De La Noche”, are classic heavy metal tunes with pretty simple songwriting, nice solos, catchy choruses and rebellious lyrics. I found them enjoyable because I like simplicity in this genre, but there isn’t anything really special or innovative in this part of the album. “Dos Lunas Negras” and “Luces En El Cielo” show another face of the band, they are simple too but they don’t have the same “hell yeah, we rock!” attitude, both songs are long (more than 8 minutes). I don’t consider them boring but they might be for some people because of the repetition of the same riff over and over and because they are mid paced, they have a mysterious feel and some keybords too. “Reencarnación” and “Péndulo” don’t share too much in common because they have an identity; the first one is one of the band’s fastest numbers, excellent speed metal with a cool intro, and “Péndulo” is a fast instrumental and it’s the most complex and heavy song of the album. I would define Acero’s music as a mix of some of the best moments of Priest in the 80’s and “Painkiller”, with some melodic Maiden influence; they have showed those characteristics in their 2 albums.

Moya’s voice is in good shape, the normal melodic singer, Molina’s guitar is sharp and heavy, bass is audible but doesn’t plays an important role in the band, it just plays the same as the guitars and it gives more weight to the music, and drumming just fits the music perfectly, with good use of the bass drums and nice fills. Production is very clear and that makes hearing the album even a more pleasant experience.

As the first reviewer said, the defect of this album is that songs are kind of similar (something they fixed on their next album) and that can make it repetitive but if you like heavy metal you shouldn’t care about that… I mean, I don’t care if 2 riffs are similar if I like them! And this is one of Acero’s virtues, they really have the spirit of heavy metal and almost everything they play sounds good… The album is very constant in quality, every song is ok but there isn’t any really outstanding moment on the album.