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Overtly minimalistic - 70%
When we think about Latin America, certain musical genres like dance-hall and samba instantly come to mind. Except for Brujeria, most metalheads won't be able to name any other band from this geographical region. There are many hidden gems in this land, and Doomslut might just be one.
On this demo, we're provided with a really overly-distorted hunk of the more funeral-doom oriented metal. It's not as sorrowful as Nortt but not as cheerful or stoned as Kylessa. In other words, it's sort of a bridge between several extensions of doom, from psychedelic to funeral to stoner to sludge. Doomslut's promiscuity with these genres make up for quite an ethereal, interesting musical journey, eccentric and quasi-spiritual in tone.
There are practically no drums, bass, or vocals on this albums, with the band opting entirely to create an ambiance with guitar sounds and electronic sounds. I think that the band did a bad job with having more than one song on this demo, and I'm about to tell you why. The primary reason is that almost all songs sound identical, as I've already explained there are no drums or vocals which could help differentiate one song from another, and mostly the different guitar melodies, droning and downwards-spiral oriented, do not stand out in a spectacular manner from each other. This convolutes everything, a mistake which could have been remedied by using less songs. Another valid reason would be that each song is very long, mostly averaging around the six, or seven minutes mark.
The dominant emotion present in this album is despair. A soundscape of misery and mental depravity is overtly showed, which makes it easier for the listener to connect with the music. The most depressive song on this album has to be "Chivo Negro". Maniacal screams akin to that of Hypokondri's singer, sharing the same over-the-edge tone, and walls of sounds which hit the listener with a force of thousands of bullets, really manage to create an entire tapestry and intricate structure for such a minimal technique-wise song, thus spicing up the album quite a bit. Production-wise, this demo is quite messy, but after all, it's just a demo, and the effort sounds much greater than most other releases being released in copious amounts, now more than ever.
Unfortunately, there's not much else to say about this album. It's a very unorthodox approach towards doom, since it lacks the drums which are frequently used as a tool to maximize the pounding sound funeral-doom generally opts towards, and vocals which help to create a more oppressive atmosphere. All in all, this is a very minimal, unusually sounding album, coming out from quite an obscure metal-wise country: Panama. It might not be the most innovative doom metal demo out there, with the rise of contemporary bands such as Imber Aprile, and Tectum, but it is still pretty damn interesting. For those of you who are not used to this sort of music, you might get bored very quickly, but for those who like to go beyond horizons, Doomslut is the band you're looking for.
