RANDOM — Todo.s los colores del (review)

RANDOM — Todo.s los colores del album cover

Album · 2011 · Progressive Metal

4/5 · 2011-09-03
Andyman1125

As far as possible

Random is a young Argentinian progressive/alternative thrash metal band hailing from Argentina, who fuse numerous styles ranging from good ol' 80s thrash to alternative metal to djent to progressive death metal and more, making a truly eclectic and varied blend of metallic mayhem to greet your ears upon a first listen of their debut full length album, Todo.s los Colores Del (or, All the Colors of?), which easily blew me away. The three piece easily formulates sections of fast moving thrashy parts, extremely heavy near- gurgling low-range guitar riffing parts, quirky alternative metal parts, technical progressive metal parts, and endless other quips of style peppered throughout the dense ground work of heavy, heavy, heavy metal. The entire album is a wonderful display of the three guys' talent, both instrumentally and compositionally.

The album opens with a "Cachafaz" (Spanish for "rascal"), which is a great gauge of the style of the rest of the album. Opening with some industrial sounding electronics which is then complimented by some intense riffing, which switches between various styles willy- nilly and different levels of heaviness (all staying quite heavy throughout), the song shows the band's capability to write a generally insane, heavy, and progressive track with ease. Although the song's structure is a bit haywire, with the countless ideas and riffs within the song seemingly just slapped together in a truly eccentric and eclectic way, dueling the song as an absolute mess musically and a mind blowing journey of slap-happy progressive metal, the song is a great display of the band's talent, with the music being perfectly balanced between emotion and technicality (although the quirky aspect of the music makes it seem a bit silly at times).

Much of the album shares a similar style to the opener, with the epic 11 minute "Tururu" laden with heavy as all hell riffs and rapidly shifting styles, the softer "As Far as Impossible" adding a wonderful dynamic to the heavy music, and the melancholic and beautiful "Cuando el Blanco no es Color" (or "when white is not a color," I believe) adding another solemn dynamic to the album with very deliberate nylon acoustic work and atmospheric vocals and other instrumentation. Throughout the album this eclectic blend of heavy and occasionally light moments makes the album a real treat for fans of the "artsy" side of heavy metal.

In the end, Random's Todo.s los Colores Del is an incredible ride. As I've said many times, three guys obviously have a huge range of influences as the album contains within its 56 minutes a near uncountable number of eclectic and diverse sounds that all mesh together into one truly wonderful product. Although at points all these influences seem to boil over and the band has a hard time connecting all of their ideas into a cohesive piece of music, the album still flows with a wonderful aura of maturity in the riffs, composition, and production of the album. Being a debut, I was wary of what the quality of the music would turn out to be, but the band seems to have nailed the production wonderfully, with a great blend of clean sound and slightly damp atmosphere to give presence to the heavy, deep guitar riffs, intense rhythms and rumbling bass lines that make up the trio of musicians. This combined with professional music make this album a true gem in the progressive groove metal genre, and setting this new band on the path to great things. 4 stars.