Reviews list for Xibalba - Años en infierno (2020)

This is my first experience with U.S. band Xibalba. They appear to have been a metalcore outfit at one point, but this latest album is very much a death metal release with a couple of doom metal tracks tacked onto the end. As that description suggests, the album has a strange flow to it, having a heavy pummelling death metal approach for the most part, before changing gears entirely for the rest. I actually the enjoy the production, and when I focus on individual moving parts, Años en infierno seems to have all the ingredients to be a rewarding experience. The issue is really in the songwriting though, with all the chopping and changing resulting in several tracks that lack any sort of identity. It's a bit sad when the most memorable tracks are an instrumental, that admittedly has very cool tribal drumming throughout, and a lengthy doom metal track that's somewhat tarnished by sub-par clean vocal sections. I have a feeling these guys could do something that really hits home, but they haven't got their crafting sensibilities in order at this point.

I am not an expert when it comes to doom metal with an obvious death metal flare, but of the few albums I have heard in this vein, especially over the last year, I do respect the genre and thanks to groups such as Officium Triste and Hanging Garden, I have found some pretty good music in this vein. And so I was very intrigued to hear this new record from Xibalba, and what I ended up with was some pretty good, but objectively flawed, album.

For starters, the sound of this album reminds me a lot of Tomb Mold in the compositions and some of the production. The vocals are incredibly deep and the guitar patterns are very much of the rhythmic variety instead of a melodic one. Unlike Tomb Mold, Xibalba do not mudden the vocals, but they also don’t mudden the percussion either. The drums are prominent and can become a little bit overwhelming on the more aggressive, death metal sections.

That’s another thing they borrow from Tomb Mold. Compared to their contemporaries in the subgenre, Xibalba takes the tonal implications of their subgenres and uses them both as an integral part of their musical timbre, as opposed to simple death metal growls over slow, brooding pieces. And the shorter pieces do play into some of these songs’ benefit; by having shorter tunes with death metal tendencies, they do not overstay their welcome. But when the album ends with thirteen minutes of unbreaking doom metal with the two parted “El Abismo”, I was waiting for a crack that never came.

I guess I can see the appeal for an album like this with its influences more directly on display, but it can make for a strange listen. Some of the ideas are executed well, while others just sound forced. As an overall enjoyable experience for me, it was good, but I’ll probably just stick with the more melodic tendencies of Officium Triste.