Cosmic

Subjugating civilizations throughout the cosmos with their abrasively haphazard and idiosyncratic brand of experimental heavy metal is Zumpango's Black Track, authors of a progressively hard-driving and rock-steady full-length debut under Metal Ways Records ("bad" and "nationwide" purveyor of Artillery, Killer and Sepulchral Whore) titled Cosmic and spanning more than three-quarters of an hour over ten wildly mercurial, at times downright dark and obsidian tracks.

Banality aside, the Mexicans' risk vexing those who yearn for a quick fix or rapidly unfurling developments. As such, the album is a bit of a grower. At first, it feels like there's just a bunch of slow and meandering space doom going on. That would be the expected "Intro", but once you get past the strange Q-Bert-y sound fx, along with the unsettling feel you've been stranded in Elon Musk's concept of (simulated) reality, "Pista Negra" does a fine job of applying the jets for the remainder of a what amounts to be a fun and screwy ride through the nether zones.

For starters, the foursome's momentum ebbs and flows like mad, veering between gruelingly drawn-out astral projections and sped up atmosphere of fully thrusting, tumbling and rumbling about-faces known to crack spacesuit helmets, from time to time. For example, dig how "Nightmare Curse" abruptly surges from its creepy cryogenic slumber into a right gripping and raw, downwind scratchy shuffle culminating towards exultant gang cries of cosmic adulation and all-out, altruistic hurrah. If anything, there's no "I" in team, nor in Black Track.

For that matter, leads are conservative, albeit exuberantly deployed, like either ray-gunner's festive and fiery solo foray forty-eight seconds into "There Is No Dark Magick Here", by all accounts, an already rollicking, rockabilly track, not to mention corny, catchy allusion to the Ramones. Smirking not far behind is the lupine and lycanthropic, ballsy humdinger "The Wolf Bites Tonight", which is so forceful and direct (as well as less spatial or galaxy-brained), in a killer RAM-meets-Amulet manner. This is instantly observed by means of a downright barreling, confidant battery supplemented by more complex and superior string instrumentation i.e. both bass and guitars, from a rampantly towing and crazed, thrash-meets-neo-classical kind of guitar riff which evokes smashing game of tenpin bowling, straight into the gutter, alongside super wobbly and sly thorium burner of a lead (bridged by ineluctable howl), to an un-named bassist's overwhelmingly jangling, skull-rattling contribution, the most prevalent and engaging of the lot, by far.

Total recall!: Black Track's official line-up demands revision as, judging from the present and this here indelibly wiggling production (which, in mid-2017, finally succeeded a couple early 10s demos as well as novenary and compendious 2014 EP called Let The Thunder Roar), it appears to have graduated from a trio to a quartet, still featuring Asphyxer's good ole Rayo as front blaster/vocalist, his faithful Demon Steel co-blaster, Jorge, Black Panther on drums as usual, and whom I assume is our nutty and elusive bassist, Alexis. Anyhow, aside from that paramount marginalia, it's worth noting the boys proclaim themselves the founding fathers of "cosmic" metal.

(I'm not joking - check out their mugbook page if you don't believe me.)

Cruising along, things take a bit of a slackened, if not provisional, saturnine turn with "Darkness Came To Town". Its feral fandango of a lead begs a coupling or two, but R.'s arcane, crooning wails here can be a bit much. It would've made a better closer, but at least this (b)old school revivalist vessel compellingly re-enters subspace on its patronymic and prized pièce de résistance, "Cosmic Metal". Adapted here without "Into The Darkness" (that is, said EP's extended and, in my view, "true" version), it still constitutes a validating comeuppance for those looking to ascribe a signature sound to otherwise very jam-y and spontaneous, eclectic outfit. The same can be said about thrashed-out drumming assault and high strung razor-grater known as "Warrior's Attack", additional ridiculously enthused, albeit apt, gang idioms and asseveration notwithstanding.

Placid horizons surface at behest of misleading "Velocidad Relámpago" before bracing for crash-land jolt on planet Sizzurp, in time for a real funereal space creeper in closer "Galactic Will", the stark, hoary likes of which hazily trail you long after it's over. Indeed, Black Track's Cosmic is a genuine behemoth of demonic cosmogony gone wild just like the howling vacuum sucking wolfman gracing its gibbous lunar cover. Nevertheless, once it properly takes off with the jauntily energetic and gregarious "Into The Cemetary", chances are you'll be swept aside like so much scorched moon dust whilst these loose and lethal far-flung amigos rock n' rattle collective snouts off. Verily, it's earned a sagacious footnote in the annals of Latin American traditional heavy metal...Madre de Dios!