CultoALaMuerte

Digging into the bands you have no idea about is always risky, you may find something new and interesting (rarely...) or some total crap (much more often...). I found Ancient Hate in this way, while checking catalogue of the Barbatos Productions, one of my fav underground labels. It was... an interesting experience.

Ancient Hate (yet another one man band...) plays music that is quite hard to categorize. It's a mix of black/death metal with some rock elements as well, making their music listenable at last. It's quite melodic and rhythmic, with some Oi! rock influences. After an interesting intro (guitar passages mixed with some distant speech), Ancient Hate starts blasting us with its music for about 30 minutes. There are nine tracks here, including intro, outro and three covers. Some songs are heavier and sometimes have a marching feel ("A la horca"), some are a bit slower and more melodic, with nice instrumental parts ("A los caídos"), some are kinda black 'n' roll ("Peste negra"). There are even some more climatic, acoustic parts ("Peregrino de la ansia"). Vocals are definitely closer to growl than blackish shriek, sometimes literally hidden behind the wall of music ("Suelo y sangre"), sometimes quite understandable ("Peste negra"). There are some recitations too, for instance in the outro.

It is demo material, so do not expect some very good sound, but it doesn't mean that this is some complete crap. Just a mediocre quality sound, I heard better and worse as well. Guitars are not bad, while drums... could be better. There are no keyboards here, so no Casio-style ambient parts. Technically speaking, it's just medium demo quality.

There are three covers as well. "Crush the Jewish Prophet" (by Inquisition) is mediocre at least, while "The Hammer Falls on Zion" (by Der Stürmer) sounds quite good, it keeps the spirit and energy of the original version."Mourning Soul" (by Absurd) is somehow louder than the rest of the material, but it's simply a disaster - a really poor cover, it sounds bad and noisy. In general, I'm not a big fan of getting many covers. It's absolutely fine if musicians want to pay a tribute to their musical mentors, but 1/3 tracks on the entire material is too much. And I prefer when a band tries to do something new and original than just simply trying to play the song in the same way as old masters did. And it's better to avoid songs that were already covered quite often.

Ancient Hate is a mixed bag. Some songs are pretty good and interesting ("Peregrino de la ansia", "A los caídos"), some just average ("Suelo y sangre") and the "cover part" of the material can be simply skipped. Lyrics are all in Spanish and are proof that Ancient Hate stays true to the most radical side of the black metal scene. I know some might complain that these are not in English, but I like people using their own languages. All in all, I can see some potential here. So, fewer covers and more of your own tracks next time!