Matando güeros

Brujeria are the most popular extreme metal outfit in Mexico, with their mass-mixture of grindcore with groovy death metal, bound with gory drug-related themes. Just like Slipknot, the band is not a common band, but a supergroup of people. Both bands use "anonymous" ways to "hide" and pseudonyms, being probably one of the first quasi-popular grindcore bands (aka groups) to use drop tunings. The quite unusual spectrum of this album for the eons of old-school grindcore was the use of slow and mid tempos, whereas grindcore originally feasted on mid-high tempo with velocity over groove-ity. This record is short compared to its number of tracks; when you hit six minutes, you're at the end of track five, also known as Matando güeros.

The guitar tone is half-pitch-shifted, accompanied by a grotesque reverb, along with the experimentation of various and copious genres like industrial metal, death metal, et cetera. Its effect of reverb and tone gives birth to a hallway with an uncanny yet visceral atmosphere, and this effect applies to the song "Seis Seis Seis", Its intro has a dramatic sixteenth-note pull-off between frets four and six (I think?). Juan Brujo's vocals are deep and mixed between growls and harsh Jeff Walker-like shrieks; you feel the vocals touching your soul, even if you're against the band's attitude, such as playing secret shows, singing about drug smuggling, et cetera. But if you're here for the sound, it's still worth it.

Once enough, also known as when all is said and done, this mildly-appreciated monsterous chef-made grindcore album smoothly turns into deathgrind's first heap. With fleshy tones, horrendous yet gorgeous riffs, and controverse themes, enough to make people sick. Barely compared to bands like Napalm Death, of which its bass/guitarist (Hongo) is a member of.

You can do the same tone of the intro for "Culeros" on the app Bias FX 2, just put some distortion, add a pitch shifter, and put it into the rock bottom and adjust a little bit the harmony, tune it in Drop B, and play some melodic two-string chords on the strings G# and B. Well, you got this song. This track seems like a ritual or something, probably it is? - Its atmosphere can be compared to the song "Reek of Putrefaction", by Carcass, which also includes a tenebrous atmosphere. It's worth checking out if you're mind-open to polemics.

Güero is the most denigrative word in Spanish for Caucasian, a racial description and an insult at the same time. Juan Brujo's lyrics deal around the Mexican- American pairing a lot; especially the border issues: drugs and inmigration. He also talks about satanic bulk occasionally. Brujería’s grindcore has the streetwise, coke-crack or meth fast and vicious filth all over it. Like the stench of a homeless heroin addict, this record is morbid and impure. Irreverent and forceful, the violent grooves on “Matando Güeros” are extremely heavy, enjoyable and catchy.

Hyperactive drumming bedizens the fast tempo riffs with a very raw punky feel. Blastbeats are the other main rhythm, percussion’s main goal is to blow your head off with the machine gun fire like “RA TA-TA TA -TA TA” beat. Some slower and heavier passages are often used, simple headbanging material but truthful and courageous. Bass drums coordinated dance can be clearly heard on them, but also on the blast beats. They did a nice job modeling the audio on this production, despite it being recorded in one session. The simple nature of grindcore riffs helps to that matter obviously, its intensity is easier to capture.

Bass guitar in charge of el güero sin fé -the faithless redneck- plays a very important role in the band’s sound. Distorted and down-tuned like fuck, but still legible and defined it gives a wider and surrounding dimension to the low end. It has a solid tone despite of the distortion, very metallic and bass emphasized at the same time. It can be fully hear individually rather than just as a tool to give a more solid body to the music, a goal it also accomplishes. Guitars by Hongo and Asesino doesn’t really sound like a twin axe attack. The simplicity of the band’s music doesn’t need a second guitarist, they didn’t even play solos/melodies… both guitars play exactly the same thing. Enriched by the fuzzy bass guitar its distortion is bass oriented –not focused on treble and mids- and heavy, not with lots of signal modeling. Very sharp and raw it adds even more violence to the rabid riffs.

Brujo’s vocals are unique. His Anglo-Saxon accent can be noticed even with the grunts that soil them. Another aspect I must point out of his growls is that they are vicious and deep but not so low, and words can be distinguished easily if you speak Spanish of course. His native English speaker accent combined with the lyrics, that were first though in English (you can tell by grammar) and then roughly translated give a fucked up and sarcastic edge to the band’s music, because they are very loud and memorable; more present than in other extreme metal bands where the vocals’ content is not as important as how it sounds with the rest of the noise.

Brujeria's debut full-length album, and in my opinion, the rawest, heaviest, nastiest of the three they've released so far. Also less "commercial" than the next two, I would say.

The production is good, not as clean as in their future releases, but you can easily hear every instrument and the lyrics. I'd also say it adds to the "raw" feel of this album.

Musically, it's almost entirely oriented towards death metal and especially grindcore, with pretty standard (in those genres, anyway) but well-performed instrumentation. The guitars have a down-tuned somewhat thick and murky sound, and the bass is quite prominent. I believe the booklet reveals that indeed many band members provided bass duties, so it's likely that songs often feature more than one bass playing.
Most of the songs are mid-paced and perhaps leaning towards the fast, but not that much if you consider other acts in the genre. There are also some slower songs, like "Molestando Niños Muertos" or "Culeros", which are often more dissonant than the faster songs.
Some of the riffs are pretty tight, and they can be catchy in a way. There's also parts with a certain groove to them.

The lyrics are sicker, more explicit and politically incorrect compared to the other albums, with topics covering drug trafficking, Satan worship and sex, in various forms. Most of the songs are lyrically influenced by the 1988-89 media-influenced Satanic mass hysteria in Mexico, when it was found that a drug cartel and Palo Mayombe cult (though the media attributed it to Satanism, something the band exploited to cause a stronger impact in a mostly Catholic country) butchered rival cartel members and innocent people in rituals of torture, human sacrifice and cannibalism. Other specific topics covered by the lyrics in this album are the abuse of prostitutes, necropedophilia, illegal immigration, stealing this album, etc...
The lyrics are also notably discriminatory about pretty much everything, including homosexuals, rockers, jews, overweight people, christians, atheists, junkies, prostitutes, asians, caucasians, blacks, indigenous Mexicans and more.
Fluent (or otherwise native) Spanish-speakers who are not turned-off by the lyrical topics will likely be amused by the slightly broken Spanish. Strangely, it also features several slang terms exclusive to Mexico that are hardly known to foreigners.

If you're the kind of person who doesn't like to listen to music in languages you can't understand, despite the vocals making it difficult to make out the lyrics (which I wouldn't say is the case with this band, for the most part), then you might be turned off by the band's attitude, refusing to sing in English, but you'd definitely be missing out not checking this out for such a superficial reason.

This is quite simply a classic album. Even if you're not a huge fan of death/grind, this is pretty memorable.

Brujeria emerged as a metal band for "la raza", a grindcore metal band with their lyrics in spanish, as most of the Latin American metal bands sung in english (and they still do, anyway). By this fact, it should not be surprising that anything in this record wasn't previously done musically, although their imagery and lyrical issues really gave Brujeria a whole goddamn identity of their own. Most of the people could think this band is just a joke, because of this thing of the masks and the nicknames, but their Napalm Death, Carcass inspired grindcore is really effective.

Well, if Shane Embury (sorry, it's Hongo hehehe) participated of the creation of this album (and most of Brujeria's material), it's quite simple to realize the similitude between Matando Güeros and the early Napalm Death material (Scum, From Enslaved to Obliteration, etc). Musically, this album is really good, well played and with an acceptable production. The typical grindcore musicianship. Juan Brujo's vocals are just a Latin version of Lee Dorrian or Jeff Walker, with some elements of his own. Nothing new or spectacular, but this album has some glorious moments: Leyes Narcos, Sacrificio, Seis Seis Seis, the thrasher instrumental piece Chinga Tu Madre and of course the classic title track, Matando Güeros, are pure grindcore pieces that surely will convince you of buying this album. Apart from the mentioned fast grindcore songs, Brujeria develops some really macabre pieces, like Narcos Satánicos, Verga Del Brujo / Están Chingados, or Culeros, slower pieces, but darker, deeper and with great demonic riffs.


OK, Brujeria has nothing new, so don't expect a progressive avant-garde album while listening to Matando Güeros. This could be dangerous, but Brujeria acomplished the fundamental goal for bands who don't want to introduce anything new: conviction. Brujeria believes at 100% in what they do, and that gets reflected on their disciplined extreme metal, which seems to be a joke, but is extremely serious.

Don't be "culero", buy this album! Viva la raza!

I'm not a great fan of grind/gore, grindcore, death/grind or anything else with the word "grind" on it, but I enjoy listening to it some times; this album is one of the few of this genre I actually enjoy, mainly because of it's complete lack of melody and song structures at all!

Let me explain. In here, we have basic, stripped down death/grind, with a lot of drugs, satanism, violence and everything you would expect from a grind band on the mix. If you are looking for techincal expertise or some serious release, forget this album. In fact, forget about Brujeria at all! Because in this album there's nothing more except insane drumming and riffs with some random vocal lines (in spanish) thrown in there, making it completely unintelligible at times... but in the good way! In the way that will make you headbang like crazy or even laugh at the idiotic spanish lyrics, which, in their effort to sound evil and insane, end up sounding as self-parody.

Actually, the album has its (rare) serious moments. The songs begin to get longer and more structured towards the end, and a special remark must be given to the instrumental "Chinga Tu Madre", which actually sounds more like an old-school death/thrash song than death/grind. In general, a good album for fans of the genre, or even for someone who is looking for basic death metal fun.

This is Brujeria’s first, and to me, best sounding album. It is not over burdened by fancy guitar leads and tasteful drum work. Cro-Magnon riffs and skull smashing skin pounding. If this sounds unappealing to you, then stop reading now. If you're expecting the sterile tones of Fear Factory, this is not for you. It sounds like your basic murky, lo-fi death/grind, with an emphasis on murky. This sounds like it was recorded in a sewer. This album would be the sound a mutated betentacled sewer monster would make if it could talk. And that is where the appeal for this album lies with me.

The riffs sound very basic and stripped down, with little to zero ‘tech’ in them. They might even be described as having a somewhat Punk influence. Luckily, Dino Cazares AKA Asesino, uses very few Fear Factoryisms. I’ve heard that they use 2 basses in their lineup, and it show with their extreme low end frequencies. The drummer, Raymond Herrera AKA Grenudo, doesn’t rely on triggers, making the album sound extremely organic. The blast beats are adorably sloppy, lending to the lo-fi feeling of the album. He also shows a nice sense of groove for the most part. The ‘singer’ has pretty much 2 style, a basic gruff yelling, and an understandable growling style. The Mexican Spanish lyrics are hilarious too.

One good thing about the album is that the songs are short, thereby not causing boredom. The album clocks in at just over 30 minutes. The songs also follow a basic structure, but they still throw a few surprises here and there. One of my problems with the album is that I have to crank up the stereo really loud whenever I listen to this as well. There are a few filler type songs, but since the songs are do short, I don’t mind. I feel that the album is best when listened to from beginning to end, like a book. If you like basic detuned death/grind than this is a good album. If you are stuck in Melodeath limbo than it probably won’t appeal to you.

I don’t think there’s one person who listens to death/grind that hasn’t at least heard of Brujeria. And if there is, then that individual is really missing out on some of the sickest music ever to come out of the Americas.

The first thing that people tend notice about Brujeria - and let’s face it, it’s hard not to – is that all
lyrics are in the band’s native language, espanyol. Unfortunately, some people tend to pass them by on that account, which is a real shame, as this album is one the best grindcore albums around. And you can go hack yourself up with a machete if you don’t believe me.

So what do you get from a Brujeria record, let alone “Matando Gueros”. Well, you get blast beats, double barrel drumming, shredding riffs, low bass, brutal death metal vocals and tongue in cheek lyrics about sacrificing “white boys”, drug trafficking, illegal immigration, prostitution, cum, protecting narcotics with satanic rites, molestation and well, big dicks. I know it may sound bizarre, but anyone with just an ounce of a twisted sense of humour will be pissing himself laughing upon a good reading of the lyrics page (assuming they speak Spanish fluently or can find translated lyrics on the net, like I did). But the highly enjoyable, yet sick and twisted, lyrics take a secondary role to grinding riffs full of blastbeats and killer vocals. The beauty of the album is the way that it bombards you with blastbeats aplenty, yet keeps you guessing as it throws you songs totally different than anything else on the album.

In contradiction to the chaos of songs like the 40 second blast “Santa Lucia (Saint Lucia)”, the brutal, rollercoaster “Seis Seis Seis (Six Six Six )” and the imposing “Grenudos Locos (Crazy Headbangers)”, which are all full of fast riffs, heavy bass and pummelling drums, you’re treated to tracks like the interlude “Culeros (Faggots)”, the ginding mid-tempo instrumental “Chinga Tu Madre (Fuck Your Mother)”, the slow, menacing “Verga Del Brujo/Estan Chingados (Dick of the Brujo/You’re Fucked)”, the surprisingly catchy “Matando Gueros (Killing White Boys)” and the brilliant “Molestando Ninos Muertos (Molesting Dead Children)”. It’s always nice to listen to a grindcore band that shows it’s not afraid to take it’s foot off the acceleration a little bit.

The album’s best tracks are the last four, taken from the “Machetazos (Machete Hacks)” demo. The production on these tracks is quite different from the rest of the album. For starters the bass sounds like a fucking chainsaw, the guitars are louder and the vocals are a little bit better. The songs are also complimented by poor production, which give them an extremely raw sound. Of course, that’s not to say that the rest of this awesome album has squeaky-clean production, far from it.

So, for those looking for fast, heavy death metal founded on a grindcore blue print, should go for “Matando Gueros”. On the other hand, if it sounds like a bit too much for your liking, you can always go for one of Brujeria’s lesser albums, “Raza Odiada” and “Brujerizmo” – which are great albums too.

Either way you won’t be disappointed.
VIVA LA BRUJERIA!