Info
- Band(s): Astriferous
- Label(s): Me Saco un Ojo Records, Pulverised Records, Seed of Doom
- Release Format(s): 12" vinyl, Cassette, CD
- Release Year: 2023
- Review Date: March 31, 2023
- Author(s): FelixS
This is the fourth review to appear for Astriferous on our VM-Underground pages, not counting the interview, but for me personally, admittedly, I arrived a bit late to the party. I only got to know the band with their split 7″ EP with Bloodsoaked Necrovoid (Seed Of Doom Records). On that split 7″ EP, they certainly didn’t make a bad impression and made me go back and listen to what I had missed before anyway. Enough to look forward to the new album, as recently released via Me Saco Un Ojo, Pulverized Records and again Seed Of Doom.
So what makes this band worthwhile? Actually, that’s not even an easy question to answer. It really doesn’t bring up anything new at all and it’s not even really of a super high standard. But, most importantly: it just sounds good. The band takes Old School Death Metal as its base, pours a certain Swedish sauce over it and uses enough dynamics to keep it all exciting. Adding to that are some slightly contrarian melodies. That’s about it, really. Still, these Costa Ricans manage to forge it into a particularly good-sounding whole where they stay away from the overly well-trodden path of cavernous Death Metal, but do manage to put on a particularly effective wall-of-sound.
The crunchy guitar sound might sound a little Swedish, the way they craft their songs is definitely reminiscent to the way the Finnish did in those early 90’s. A comparison to bands like Demigod, Abhorrence and especially Convulse are easily drawn. Rather complex (but not overly technical) song structures, a slight nod to Grindcore frenzy and especially the chopping drumming stand out considerably in this. To top it all off, it is the shared vocal duties that draw particular attention: deep, heavy and with such authentic power that ‘Pulsations From The Black Orb’ could have been recorded as much as three decades earlier.
To wrap things up, ‘Pulsations From The Black Orb’ turns out to be quite an impressive debut album. Something the previous output already predicted, despite me being not quite the early adopter. To those who were there from the beginning and already supported the band from these earliest stages (like my VM-Underground colleagues): you were right, Astriferous definitely deserves your time.
Astriferous
- Country: Costa Rica
- Style: Death Metal
- Links: Instagram, Bandcamp, Spotify
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Me Saco un Ojo Records
- Country: United Kingdom
- Style: Black Metal, Death Metal
- Links: Homepage, Facebook, Instagram, Bandcamp
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Pulverised Records
- Country: Singapore
- Style: Black Metal, Death Metal, Thrash Metal
- Links: Homepage, Facebook, Instagram, Bandcamp, Youtube
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Seed of Doom
- Country: Netherlands
- Style: Death Metal
- Links: Facebook, Instagram, Bandcamp
