Ancestral Terrors

When I think of Mexico's contribution to metal music, the first genre that comes into my mind is death metal. The more I delve into my own country's metallic offerings, the more I'm convinced about this. We never had a great heavy metal band like Argentina's V8 or Rata Blanca, though Luzbel was and still is a good act… actually, two separate but related acts. We also never had a great power metal, or extreme metal band in the eighties, like Brazil's Sepultura or Sarcofago. Bands of a somewhat similar style started to appear at the end of the golden decade of metal. Transmetal and Leprosy were the Mexican deathrash pioneers, and while they have never stopped pushing the pedal on their metal, they have never reached that far beyond our borders, save perhaps in the collection of a few hardcore extreme metal connoisseurs around the globe. But at least they started to stir things a bit more, and by the dawn of the 90s, the scene started to develop. Many excellent, pure death metal bands started to appear in Aztec soil, like Cenotaph, Shub Niggurath, Toxodeath, and later Foeticide and The Chasm. Since then, Mexican death metal has led all other national metal styles in quality export.

R'lyeh belongs to that first wave of Mexican pure death metal bands, first appearing as Devourment, and releasing a demo with that moniker. Then, Roger Bravo and Alex Lugo released this material, now under a more Lovecraftian signature and featuring a different drummer than Devourment. The sound of Ancestral Terrors is unbelievable good for a demo, not only in terms of musical quality, but also in the production. I’m not a big fan in collecting or paying much attention to demos, but I've only listened to this one in the diminished shape of digital format and it sounds amazing! I imagine listening directly to the cassette must be even better. The brand of death metal within is pretty solid by its own merits, but empowered by the great production values, makes it even more attractive. The bass guitar kind of gets buried beneath the rest of the low tuned instruments, but the bass drums have an otherworldly membranous resonance that helps this record build an eerie atmosphere. The vocals and the guitars have the lion's share of the musical presence here, and both sound quite thunderous.

Ancestral Terrors is a five song release in which R'lyeh shows great influence by the more cavernous brand of death metal, given form by bands like Autopsy and Incantation. Bravo’s vocals are brutal, deep, guttural utterings that would make the Great Old One proud. The highlight of this release, he's like the Mexican version of Craig Pillard, and his power can be appreciated right in the “Intro” track, a one-minute piece of atmospheric death metal. “The Art of the Gore” is the first proper song, my favorite along with “Cthulhu Dead Dream”. Like the rest of the tunes here, it features changes in tempo that prevents this material to become stagnant. Crawling death/doom parts have unholy intercourse with faster death metal sections, not unlike Autopsy's Mental Funeral. Blastbeats appear from time to time, but they're not over employed. The drums never go really crazy, mostly performing rhythms of different pace with consistency. The guitar chugs along with a satisfactory heavy morbid tone, and while the riffs are not particularly amazing, they're varied enough to give proper support to Bravo's unholy Cthulhu invocations. Short and twisted solos appear sporadically, like retaliatory minion offsprings of dark deities, lashing out with a squeak. They are a welcome addition to the sonic onslaught, and I wish there were more of those, and more complex. But even as the band keeps things simple, the result is above average death metal, at least for its day. “Frozen in Life”, and the namesake “R'yleh”, the final two songs, feel more of the same but slightly less appealing. Maybe, after one has got used to the compelling sonic aesthetic, the riffing patterns and simple rhythms don't prove too enduring after all. Roger's roars remain amazing throughout the entire record, that's a sure thing.

This is a pretty sweet demo that unfortunately I possess only in digital format, an obscure jewel of a Mexican extreme metal scene that has become stronger and more diversified through the years, with acts like The Chasm, the more recent Denial and Zombiefication or newcomers Question, spearheading the assault in the international battlefield. But the seminal work of bands like this one laid the ground for the scene to develop and rise. It's a shame that no big label in Mexico ever tried to embrace and boost artists like R'lyeh. Though death metal has never been that marketable, greater support existed and still exists in the US and Europe. That's what prompted The Chasm to relocate to Chicago, after struggling for years here in Mexico. It would take seven years for R'lyeh to self-produce a following release to Ancestral Terrors, and their first ever LP just appeared a couple of years ago. It sucks, but on the other hand, in just makes this obscure demo a more treasured gem. If you manage to get this one, you'll suffer my envy, but Cthulhu would be pleased… and so will you.