UMUR
"Satánico Dramático" is the debut full-length studio album by US death/ thrash metal act Dia De Los Muertos. The album was released in March 2011 by Cinismo Records. In order to promote the album Dia De Los Muertos has offered free download of the album on their official website.
The music on the album is death/ thrash and there are some clear references to bands like Arc Enemy and the most melodic and hard rock oriented Carcass. To further strengthen the link to the latter, Jeff Walker delivers a guest vocal appearence on the "Fresh Meat to the Grinder" track. Scott Carlson from Repulsion also appears as a guest on that track. There´s focus on delivering "in your face" and memorable death/ thrash tracks, and the band generally succeed in doing that, but they don´t neglect to put a bit of melody into their music either, so there´s a good balance between aggression and harmonic content. The above mentioned "Fresh Meat to the Grinder", the out and out thrash metal track "Sigo Vivo" and the closing melodic instrumental title track are the three tracks that stand out most from the rest and it´s also those three tracks that provide enough variation to give the album an extra dimension.
Featuring members and ex-members of acts like Agony, Body Count, Asesino, Dreams of Damnation and Static-X, it´s safe to say these guys ( and one lead vocalist girl) aren´t newbies and it´s obvious in the execution of the material. The playing is solid and delivered with conviction.
The production by Alfonso Pinzón suits the music very well and while I would personally have prefered a more raw production with a bit more grit, it´s an aquired taste, and looked upon objectively the production is professional and well sounding.
The music on "Satánico Dramático" isn´t going to revolutionize the world of metal, for that there´s too little innovation, but fans of Arc Enemy and late period Carcass should be able to find a lot to like on this album. A 3.5 star rating is deserved.