Matando güeros

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.