Calcinados

Reinventing yourself is a risky business, particularly when you’ve already had a pretty good sound going for you. But Mexico’s own band of sick black metal fanatics Dolmen seem to have pulled it off and actually come out the better for it. They started off with a somewhat thrashing and riff happy variant on the slow paced, mournful approach to melodic blackness that typified the first two Dimmu Borgir albums, differing primarily in the emphasis of the guitars over the keyboards and a lead happy approach that rivals that of “Spiritual Black Dimensions”, which is an original take on the older style given that most of the older Nordic albums tended to restrain the leads, with perhaps the exception of Immortal.

But “Calcinados” is an instant deal changer, and actually shows the band taking a step out of being a follower of the style into a potential leader in it. This is much more thrash oriented than pretty much anything I’ve heard out of the blackened rank and file, and brings back those old Teutonic Trio influences that Euronymous and Varg would often reference in early interviews. “Holocausto” and “Condena”, in particular, just let loose a surge of galloping, crunchy, bone-cracking riffs that scream “Persecution Mania” like nobody’s business. Some “Pleasure To Kill” moments also filter in and out on the more chaotic sections, although during the verses there tends to be a greater propensity for blasts to reassure that the band’s black roots are still present, albeit in more of an early Mayhem variant rather than the Emperor/Dimmu Borgir one from 10 years prior.

The quality of every aspect of this brief little 4 song EP is where things really come together. The production is absolutely clear as glass, and the guitar tone just cuts through the air like a thousand heathen blades. Edgar’s vocal grunts cross various influences, occasionally channeling the gravely shouts of more extreme thrash bands from the 80s, but mostly sounding like a twisted hybrid of Nocturno Culto and Chuck Schuldiner. The lead guitar interjections, which were pretty significant on “Eternidad Obscura”, are downright sick here, channeling an impressive blend of Jeff Hanneman and Kirk Hammett. The only thing that this band seems to have lost rather than gained is their keyboards, which isn’t a really big problem given the stylistic shift they’ve gone through.

There’s perhaps a little bit of sameness to these songs, as they tend to rely on a continuous format of thrash section to blackened blast, back to thrashing and then a breakdown before a series of solos and bridge sections; but it works well in this capacity. There are few albums out there that can wreck both your neck and darken your mood at the same time, and this pulls off both quite nicely. For a trip back into the wonderful world of German thrash metal circa 1988, give this wicked little perro a try.