Metal Morte

There's been no shortage of throwback bands in this last decade, except Sarcasmo changes it up with a combination of '90s death metal with aspects from speed/heavy/thrash metal like it was played in the glorious '80s.

The production has some justifiable roughness and is reminiscent of the old analog sound quality. Though the instruments are adjusted more towards chunkier death metal: the guitars are heavily distorted and thick, with the drums and bass being somewhat blended but not hidden. The vocals are also catering to dm with deep growls that mostly go for a set tone but with some adjusted quicker delivery as well as some emotion escaping to emphasize a particular moment. The guitars switch back and forth between playing a characteristic death metal lick, to a straight speed/heavy rhythm and others that come in between with thrash. There's songs that contain more of one genre than another, but overall there isn't a strict pattern to when one style will come up and one won't, as the band just shifts into either or. Occasionally it's blended, at others it sounds off to my ears. A general analogy would be like Cannibal Corpse covering Judas Priest without changing their production or vocals; it's interesting and a little fun to see the show down, but it's a chore in itself to see it perfectly matched. For instance, it can sound a little unnatural when the vocalist repeats a chorus with deeper vocals to a catchier guitar line from a prior decade. Even though both are aggressive in a sense, the vocals can be too big a contrasting menace.

The majority of the solos are from a speed/heavy influence. This is fairly authentic: the scales are traditional, the notes are skillfully breezed through with the occasional pause for a massive bend, the whammy bar is included to give it that particular classic flavor, and there is even some double tracking. The lead guitarist is fairly proficient in the style and might toss in a few solos within a single song. One moment there is an older style lead and then there are deeper placed rhythms and harmonic squeals. The band definitely had their leather and spikes recordings right next to the goriest of the goriest albums. "A Marcha dos Impios" has a ballad starting with a build up of clean guitars plucking the strings with moderately spaced arpeggios. The bass guitar slides in and then a smoother solo arrives as if the lead guitarist perms his hair and wears spandex. This was another blatant throwback nod but Sarcasmo added their own captivating spin to it and definitely took time building this one with growing subtleties.

It's strange what this decade accepted compared to the last. Bands that might have been a shorted lived novelty or catered to a small pocket of exclusive fans in the past are now on bigger labels, and even others never have to leave their house due to word of mouth being spread in digital speech. Sarcasmo was even able to include all Portuguese lyrics instead of going with the standard of English like some of their predecessors had to do in the '80s to sell to the world with the likes Dorsal Atlantica, Holocausto, Ratos de Porao and others. Sarcasmo isn't going with '80s death-thrash, regular, technical, crossover or even blackened speed or heavy metal, most of us have heard those. This puts together almost completely opposing blends of metal from separated decades and divided schools of thought, and even though I listen to all of the mentioned styles, it took some time for my ears to get adjusted to the mixture. This does have hiccups, though one key aspect that helps them out, is "Metal Morte" can deliver more of their complex moments in the dm side and in their solos, and are fairly simplistic in their more traditional mode, so in that sense more sections than you might think can come together without being too overlapping or bumping heads. Sarcasmo is also musicianship oriented, so this is going to be tight and together in their overall delivery.