Creatures of the Ancient

This release looks fairly promising - an interesting concept with "ancient monsters." Will this be some kind of caveman slam? Actually it's not, aside from the fastest song on the EP, nothing that knuckle-dragging here.

There's sound effects and samples on every track. The vocals are a low pig squeal - everything about this is straddling the line between brutal death metal and proper slam, including the vocals which aren't quite the gurgle you'd heard on pure slam but not really a traditional death metal pig squeal either. At the very end of the album one of the vocalists does a sort of jabbering or scat vocal that sounds more like KoRn then anything... which the purists will definitely not enjoy.

The guitarwork is pretty good when it's good, and boring when it's not. Tracks 3 and 4 have faster riffs, slams, blast beats, pinch harmonics, bass drops, and even a classic rock sounding guitar solo. Those two are really enjoyable listens... the other two are just so slow, plodding, conservative and boring. None of those interesting elements show up, instead it's just slowwww chugging boring you to sleep.

The problem is the mixing. We're talking about death metal here - some subgenre of it - so why the hell would anyone put the guitars so low in the mastering? The vocals dominate and the guitars are almost too quiet. The whole point is the guitars, the riffs, the slams, the solos, so why can't we hear them? Terrible choice.

Pros: interesting concept, the good songs are really good. Cons: bad mixing, the other songs are boring. Hopefully the band can pull off an LP in the future and improve.