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Holocausto > De Volta ao Front > Reviews
Holocausto - De Volta ao Front

Returning to a certain looseness and energy - 60%

Byrgan, June 13th, 2010

This is Holocausto back to actually including metal from their last album in '93 that was heavy handed on samples, various sounds, and then threw in some post-rock between all of the abstractness and weirdness. Now on the other hand with this release, 'De Volta ao Front' actually sounds like it has influences anywhere from thrash, death, hardcore, and then their own strange inclusions that aren't genre restricted to what's current or what some other band established when this came out in 2005. So some parts might sound new or "odd" to your ears if you only stick to a certain style of music.

The production has a louder volume but is somewhat rough and abrasive. This almost sounds as if they were performing live, and along with their playing and the unleveled volume of their instruments, it comes across in the way of loose. On both mentioned aspects, they take the free feeling from hardcore and joined that up with metal. For example, they present somewhat uncontrolled vocal deliveries that range anywhere from growled, yelled, gang shouted, cleaner sounding, just plain roughened, and anywhere in between. It seems on each track they are varied and aren't exactly the same from the last song, also partly due to inclusions from different vocalists.

The music is fairly primitive sounding. The drums, for instance, will play at a few different speeds, mainly a mid-paced momentum or at some peaking parts that might blast, and they don't always do either one with preciseness or tightness. Ability wise, the drummer frequently down plays himself, either by just having less taps on the hi-hat when the speed of the guitars is faster, or simple cymbal or tom hits as fills. The guitars include tremolo, buzz-like strumming and palm muted sections, backed up by a heavily distorted rumbling bass guitar. They mostly get straight to the point and abandon technical playing or even melody for some others to tend to. The way the music comes together is more spontaneous than others and I think that works because it gives the feeling of listening to the band play in an adjoining room or on the spot. If truth be told, at other times you wish it was refined a tad more, although I'm sure that's not what the band themselves actually wanted to achieve here.

'De Volta ao Front' or something like "In return to the front" sounds less like a release by a long standing band than a couple of dudes in their garage jamming out looking like bank-robbers with musical weapons, essentially if you were a passerby it might look like they're attempting to work out a direction or sound for themselves since you purposely get to hear a few mistakes and the mixing is like a rough cut. This doesn't sound exactly like any of the material I've heard by them, which isn't such a bad thing. They switched again to using primarily Portuguese lyrics with a few English outbursts, the production is rough and they're playing a form of violent extreme music again. So, that much is similar to their first album 'Campo de Exterminio.' I respect the band for coming out with those aspects from their beginning days, and of course with a few more that don't conform or sound trendy by any means. However, this release still needs a little more work, as after the first couple of spins it loses its luster. Like they switch up their various styles so much during the span that certain techniques aren't always capitalized upon, missing out on that returning hankering for some certain repeated characteristics that are alluring, but instead they move on and might only sound roughly the same to the last song. This is a similar notion, but not to the same degree, as some underground hardcore bands who quickly put together their releases (mostly 7"s) to capture their emotion and energy at the time of writing a particular song; a nearly on the spot kind of thing. And in some cases those bands were more redeeming live, where you could get a present sense of energy and raw emotion from them visually, and it heightens that when you get to experience it in person as well. So I think similarly if at attendance to a show with this material, that is where they're going to be the most workable and appealing. If you're looking for something similar to their debut, check out Sarcofago's 'INRI' or Sextrash's 'Sexual Carnage,' because this isn't in the same exact vicinity as those heinous days and more in the way of say Ratos de Porao's earlier albums. If you like some crossover in your metal and don't mind a certain amount of experimentation with the combination, then I'd recommend this more so to you.