Like the experience of having your four rope-bound limbs simultaneously ripped away from your quivering torso by a quartet of charging horses, the unadulterated brutality of this debut album by Candarian is another such experience of incredible cruelty. Hailing from San José, Costa Rica, this psychopathic four piece Death Metal group was conceived in the virus ridden depths of 2020. Two years later, the band would unleash an initial demo outing in the form of the five track ‘Stagnant Livor Mortis’ tape. The release was a sludgy and noxious bout of exciting audible decomposition. Now, in the year of our lord Satan 2026, these Central American maniacs are back to subject their underground prisoners to even more unspeakable methods of sadistic anguish.
Releasing the handle for the first dropping of the guillotine blade on this Death Metal battering session is the song ‘Spectral Superstitions’. Which serves as an opening guitar refrain that seems somewhat less blatantly angry than one would expect, if judging solely by the album’s wonderful family-friendly cover art. Although, once this two minute appetiser is over, we are greeted with ‘Altars and Ancestors’. This is where the real sound of the album awakens. The band sounds tight, disciplined, and malicious. I like the reverb layer that is applied to the vocals, and the guitar playing throughout is also quite pulverising. ‘Zombie Miscarriage’ (a great name if you ask me…), is a cut of blood simmering joy. I really like the slower, sludgier riffs on this track, and the use of pinch harmonics imbues the guitar tones with a nice sharpened edge. Track number four, ‘Skull Drilling Exorcism’ begins with an unnerving movie sample, akin to the type that Mortician has employed throughout their discography. The song is an unrelenting and invigorating pit prayer with a dense and agile wall of guitars and an unintelligible, murky vocal performance.
‘Relinquished Viscera’ emerges next with a coarse grumbling bass opening. The full band follows the tide of this progression soon after in another section of Doomy teasing. I love how the track’s central motif forms the spine of the song, and this cut is overall one of the most bludgeoning on the record. The album concludes with the nearly eight minute closer ‘Vilipendio del Cadaver’. It is a mountain of a track that grows in a rhythmically charged bloody-mouthed vigour during its opening third before gradually morphing into a well-executed extended riff fest. It’s a great animal to bring finality to the record, although, despite the deliberately obscured tone, I would have personally preferred for the vocals to be slightly louder within the beastly mix here.
With ‘Trepanacion’, Candarian has crafted a very enjoyable and engaging Death Metal release. The album blends much of traditional gory Death Metal’s essence with a touch of their own singular rotting flavour. My only real nitpicky gripe with the album is that the band seems to have a tendency to fizzle out in intensity right as they’re ruminating on their most crushing moments. Keeping a foot on the accelerator during their angrier indulgences could make a future Candarian release quite excitedly neck snapping. Regardless, I can see plenty of reasons why I will personally be revisiting this respectable album in the coming weeks and beyond.
