BANDCAMP.COM

Okay you all would have heard of the website bandcamp.com, but if you haven't it's basically a website  that up and coming artist can use to promote their music. You can download music from many artists on there, there are quite a few astonishing bands on the site. Downloading albums, EPs, LPs, tracks and other music can be either free, name your price (basically free but you can choose to pay for it), or it has a solid price.

This week I've stumbled across the band Montezuma and their album 'II', and let me say that it is a true masterpiece of Death Metal. And after finding this album I've decided that each week I'll be writing a review for an artist on bandcamp.com, and to kick it off I'm going to review 'II'.

Montezuma is a five piece band from Newhall, California.
'II' is Montezuma's 2nd album and it has 4 tracks:
1. Prehistoric Hyperblast
2. Tombs
3. Bone Dust
4. Psychotic Astronomy

The first track 'Prehistoric Hyperblast' is a truly groovy straight forward Death Metal song with rich bass lines, galloping drums, brutal riffs and crushing vocals. The bass lines on the song are what first caught my attention because in a lot of bands now days they just mix the bass guitar out completely whereas this band have found the perfect balance of the guitars and bass. The drumming at the start of this song got me head banging from the get go and the riffs in 'Prehistoric Hyperblast' are extremely groovy and gets your blood pumping. The only let down in my opinion is that the vocals aren't explored enough, yes the vocals are low, crushing and brutal but you get almost nothing else. If there were some blood curdling highs or at least some mids to mix things up it would make this track far better.

Track number 2 'Tombs' is a stand out track to me almost purely for the awesome guitar solo in it, the solo put me in full eargasm mode. You know that feeling when you're listening to your favourite solo from your favourite guitarist? Yeah that's what I was feeling, the solo wasn't too boring and wasn't too technical that it lost all it's soul. Yet again the bass lines are immaculate, so are the drums and yes again the guitars were groovy.

'Bone Dust' The vocals on this track aren't anything different from the first 2 tracks but I think that the instrumentals and vocals complement each other very very well. The guitar work is yet again awesome and there are some very thrashy sounding riffs in there which sound great. The bass lines don't stand out on this song as much as the first two but still accompanies the rest of the instruments extremely well. My favourite part of the album would have to be the outro because the tone of the guitars and the bass just sounds awesome together.

'Psychotic Astronomy' is the fastest track on the album with an extremely thrash inspired sound, it still has some quite groovy passages to headbang too. This track has some truly awesome guitar sweeps, and to me is the stand out track drumming wise. Just like all the other tracks the bass lines are awesome, the vocals are yet again purely deep (yes they are very awesome lows) but there is no build up to an epic high or a lower low which is kind of a let down but the vocals are still great in their own respects, I just prefer a mix of highs, mids and lows.

Vocals : 6/10 (I would have liked to hear some more experimenting but the vocals still hold their own)

Guitars: 9/10 (Brilliant sweeps and riffs, the solo in Tombs is awesome)

Bass: 10/10 (Personally the bass guitar is my favourite aspect of the album)

Drums: 7/10 (The drumming is very accurate and very well done but it is fairly basic at times which is a let down)

Overall: 8/10

The album is about as intense as a four track album can be, with brilliant sweeps, bass lines and riffing. Vocals are brutal but don't show much besides lows (there are a few highs which are quite enjoyable).
The drumming is great but I have a habit of comparing drummers to Thomas Haake of Meshuggah and Brann Dailor of Mastodon. The band has some progressive elements too it as well which gives it some unique character.

The album is definitely worth a listen to!

Download here: http://montezuma1.bandcamp.com/album/ii
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Montezuma661?fref=ts

Thanks for reading and make sure to comment what you think of the album or suggest a band I should listen to and review.

~Tyler

Welcome!

Hi let me introduce myself I'm Tyler and I fucking love Metal. I'm still in my teens and I have much to learn in the world that is Metal, but I am a Metal Head through and through. I listen to everything from Heavy Metal to Death Metal to Progressive Metal, I mainly listen to Death Metal and it's subgenres (Tech Death, Melodic Death, Brutal/Slam, Deathcore, Deathgrind etc.) and Progressive Metal. My favourite bands are Opeth, Metallica (the band that started it all for me), Decapitated, System Of A Down, Necrophagist, Meshuggah and Korn.

I'll be making 2 blogs a week MINIMUM, my blogs will consist of music, opinions, anecdotes, rants and other random shit.

To kick it off I'd like to show you guys the most important songs in my Metal journey!

Nothing Else Matters by Metallica
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tj75Arhq5ho

I found this song when my Mum played it and I was intrigued so I asked her for more songs and she lead me to the website Grooveshark.com where I found Metallica's gold. I loved every single album of there's from Kill 'Em All to Death Magnetic.
Funny story I was exposed to Metallica when I was younger when me and my two brothers stumbled across St. Anger in my Dads CD collection (A mate of his gave it to him) when I was about 6-7 years old. We put it in the stereo and just ran around our living room making a mess and wrestling like maniacs. We never read the cover of the album so we forgot who made it leading to the time years later when I fell in love with 'Tallica. One day we had to 'dispose' of the CD when my Dad had a skits at us but this is  a story for another time...

Bad Company by Five Finger Death Punch
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_VsvZmIWxY

While on Grooveshark.com I stumbled across this band when it was recommended to me after listening to tonnes of Metallica. Needless to say I fell in love instantly and this solidified my growing love for Metal and Hard Rock.

There were plenty of other bands that were heavily influential to me like Disturbed, System Of A Down, KoRn, Breaking Benjamin, Seether, Nirvana etc. There was one song that brought me closer to Death Metal....

Pounded Into Dust by Cannibal Corpse
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m3D194Zs6NM

I found this song after searching around for the most heavy and brutal music, I didn't like Death Growls and other harsh vocals except for some screams. I loved the crushing riffs and drumming and I LIVED for the 'Pounded Into DUUUUST!!!' line.

Stabwound by Necrophagist
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b9RJXWxth5g

I have listened to this song more than any other song, more than 'Holy Diver', 'One', 'The Bleeding', 'BYOB', 'Got The Life' and any other song. I discovered shortly after finding Cannibal Corpse, I loved the instrumentals so much and at that time when I couldn't stand the vocals it was awesome because it had only a small amount of growling and a shit tonne of awesome technicality.

Got The Life by Korn
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VAWjsVoDpm0

I found this song when I was grabbing songs for my iPod out of my Mums music library and this song was on there. Ughhhhhhhhh God I love this song and Korn so much!!!!! Nu Metal is one of my favourite genres.

Ghost Of Perdition by Opeth
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lk6Q4FpW-sY

This is the most important song to me purely for the fact that it introduced me to Opeth. Opeth is the band that truly got me into Death Metal and Progressive music. Ghost Reveries was also the first album I had ever bought and I still love it to this day. The song has a perfect mixture of Death Metal and Prog, the soothing passages and heavy passages with clean vocals are what got me into the song and shortly after I started loving the Growls that Mikael Akerfeldt produced with his godly voice.

Thanks for reading!

Sincerely Tyler