Ancient Bitch

This is quite an interesting and obscure item, which I find rather odd considering that it features an ex-member of Weakling on drums. Fortunately, that band doesn't bleed through too much here, but certainly a lot of strange influences are present on this disc. Sangre Amado plays a rather doomy, dark variety of black/death metal which is somewhat in line with artists like Incantation but possesses a lot more variation. It's definitely a worthwhile disc to look into and I can't help but feel a bit sad that this band broke up only after two albums- given the material here, I think they had a lot to offer.

There's a lot of curious elements on this release, but the bulk of the material here is made up of a restrained, not precisely oldschool but not overly modern variety of black/death metal. The pace of the music is actually pretty slow, with churning, doomy segments popping up regularly (and most frequently on the long tracks bookending the album), helping to give the album a more measured, nuanced feel. And nuanced it is- I think a lot more effort than usual went into writing the tracks on this release compared to similar bands. The riffing is well defined and the songs evolve very organically, but the real thing that makes this album a winner is the dark and rather fascinating atmosphere at work. On top of the standard black/death, you also have an edge of Texan or otherwise southwestern melody- not as overt as something like Pantera, but still quite clear and intentional. Combining this with the rather occult, brooding feel gives this album an interesting atmospheric quality, like it's meant to be the soundtrack to a haunted ghost town in the old west, or maybe an alternate set of music for the video game 'Blood'. Either way, it makes this release very memorable and interesting to explore.

Parallel to this is that it's pretty fucking heavy, though not overtly downtuned or brutal in any way. It has a Coffins-like hammering quality, with long, tense buildups over a surging flow of toms collapsing into tight, palm-muted riffs and a cavernous, Catasexual Urge Motivation-like growls mixed with raspier shrieks. The rather bleak and varied sense of melody on display takes the listener a lot of different places, from almost depressive-like chord arrangements to more traditional, Incantation-style bombastic, dark death metal riffs. The distinct thing that ties everything together is the pacing: this band reminds me a lot of Goatwhore, heavily in sound, but also in the way that they're willing to break rules and experiment with whatever a song might need with no regard for what's proper in metal.

This is a really good album that's actually around in a lot of underground distros but hasn't gotten any attention. Try and change that- 'Ancient Bitch' is definitely a very impressive black/death album that numerous people out there would enjoy if only they'd give it a listen. Support interesting underground music and labels and pick this up if you see it.