Demencial

HORCAS – DEMENCIAL.

It was late 2004 and someone brought Horcas´ brand new album to my house. Fully knowing and being totally conscious of how the band has gone progressively downhill since Osvaldo Civile’s death, I popped this into the stereo and found something unexpected, it sounded like Testament’s “The Gathering” but with a more melodic vocalist and a more mid-paced approach too. There were less riffs and less speed than before while its place was occupied by blast beats and angular production (for Horcas).
This album has a particularity, all the songs start with the article EL which can be translated as THE, so we have song titles such as “The Fear”, “The Game”, “The Time”, etc.

The album starts off really nicely with two of the best tunes; both “El Agite” and “El Necio” really deliver the goods. The former is a mid-paced catchy tune with a melodic and memorable chorus. The latter is more of a modern thrash tune with fast-paced riffs and a catchy vocal melody and also the catchiest chorus featured on the album, then the mid break section has a riff and drums synchronization that is way too similar to Sepultura’s “Mass Hypnosis” intro. Next is “El Juego” and then again, I see “The Gathering” approaching in the horizon. The riff is kinda generic and the chorus while not bad is quite ineffective.

“El Aguante” follows the same line; again a modern Testament like mid-paced tune with decent soloing and blast beats. Then there’s the same with “El Tiempo”, that may be the biggest problem of the album. All of the tunes sound alike but few of them have really memorable choruses; most of them are the same again and again and while I’m not one of those whores who love to complaint about repetitiveness but eleven songs sounding all the same bores me quite much.
“El Rencor” is more melodic and watered-down and while that may not be something good at first sight, at least it makes the song distinguishable. Then comes “El Sentir” which is more groove-oriented and you’ve thinking “Wow, when are we going to get something really worthy” and then they unfold “El Origen” which is a nice melodic and thrashy instrumental track.

“El Cambio” is again average, it stars off slowly and plodding and the second one but then it picks up more or less after the first minute or so. Next is “El Miedo” which is the other really good track on the album. It’s mid-paced but it features an efficient main riff carrying the song and a hell of a catchy vocal melody which tops at the chorus, exuding catchiness. The album ends with “El FInal” which is really unimportant and I won’t get into explaining it.

Conclusion: Still this is an acceptable album (especially by 2004 standards). It’s not mallcore or plain groove metal or stupid shit with hard-rhymed vocals. It’s a modern thrash album.
I wonder if this might be the signal of Horcas becoming more and more accessible as Oconnor and many other acts these days, I wish not.