Counterline - One (2021)

Country: Colombia
Style: Melodic Rock
Rating: 6/10
Release Date: 22 Dec 2021
Sites: Facebook | Instagram

Counterline may hail from Bogotá, Colombia, but they sound a lot more like they ought to be from Denmark, where their label, Lions Pride, is based. This is very European sounding melodic rock, an approach that surely reflects where their primary influences come from. When they're good, and they're good quickly here with opener If You're Clear with Your Words and single The One, they're up there with some of the better Scandinavian melodic rock I've heard this year, if not at the level of Ronnie Atkins or W.E.T.

The bad news is that they can't maintain that level of quality across the entire running time. This is a debut album, I believe, and, even if it isn't, it sounds like one, even if the band members aren't new to the industry. Harold Waller, for instance, who handles the lead vocals, keyboards and bass, as well as chipping in on guitar, used to be in a band called Supremacy that released an album and played some major gigs. Drummer GG Andreas also played for Supremacy and while pianist Rubio Res didn't, he did play for Waller's solo project, Fandiño. None of them are new.

The good news is that there isn't anything that's obviously broken and so needs to be fixed before the band can move forward. I see this album as a beginning, a promising one but still a beginning, with a lot of the right steps taken already but a lot more still to come. They need to figure out the identity they want Counterline to have and maybe settle on a line-up, because the guitarist guest list is a long one. I'm guessing that neither Waller nor Andreas think of themselves primarily as a guitarist and the band doesn't have one otherwise, so that job's split up between the two of them and no fewer than seven other musicians, who play on one, two, three or even four songs each.

Don't get me wrong, there's some cool guitarwork here. I felt that Spell of Love stood out on that front, though I don't know if it's because of Paul Alfery's contribution or not. It probably is, as he's not on anything else, but I can't tell which guitar section is played by whom. There are certainly a lot of different guitar styles and tones on offer, though they all fall somewhere into the hard and heavy melodic rock spectrum, all melodic but some a bit more emphatic than others. And that's a bad thing here because I couldn't figure out what the Counterline sound was, given that it kept on shifting from song to song, sometimes even within a song.

Researching the band, I saw people calling out Waller's vocals as a weak point and I don't buy that except at odd points, like on Angel, which makes him feel clumsy. He has a decent voice, a soft and melodic one that's perfect for this sort of material. Does he have limits? Absolutely. He can't soar so far that it shocks us into amazement but, to give him credit, he doesn't try to do that here. He's always within his range and he doesn't remotely have the most limited range I've heard. My main complaint about his voice is that it can get too saccharine if the song lets it and there are quite a few ballads here that do exactly that.

That's partly why the first half of this album is so much stronger than the second. Both standouts arrive in the first three and they both rock, with strong riffs, excellent hooks and decent keyboard flourishes. Maybe they're not as polished as they could be, but they sound damn good to me. Spell of Love is surely next on the list and that wraps up a strong first half that doesn't have a bad song on it, just some that are better than others. The second half, however, is primarily made up of the ballads and some filler tracks that sound fair enough but don't stay in the mind past the gap until the next one starts.

I wish Counterline all the best and hope that they find a permanent guitarist to help flesh out the identity they so sorely need. I'd love to hear a second album. I have every expectation that it'll be this but better and, with a solid line-up, more consistent too.

Børeal - Las Mariposas Agitan Sus Alas (2020)

Country: Colombia
Style: Progressive Metal
Rating: 8/10
Release Date: 15 Oct 2020
Sites: Bandcamp | Facebook

Many thanks to Milo Rodríguez, Børeal's lead vocalist and lyricist, for sending me a copy of this, their debut EP. I believe my most surprising revelation from two years of diving deep into a rock and metal community that's become truly global is just how much great stuff is coming out of South America of late. This is my sixteenth review this year of a South American band and I've been stunned by the wild variety of styles and the consistent quality, not to forget just how many progressive elements feature across the genres.

It's a broad musical sweep from Argentina's Illutia to Peru's Necrofagore, via Brazil's Corona Nimbus and Chile's Lapsus Dei, but Columbia's Børeal introduce another angle with their odd combination of prog rock and modern metal. The former seems to me to be the band's priority because there are a lot of moments here where the production could have gone with crunchy guitars, a downtuned bass and a powerful drum sound but apparently chose not to. All the instruments are clearly audible, but they're more interested in the details of what they're doing than the punch of a thicker sound.

There are four songs here and they're all interesting in their way. The most interesting is Boreal, only because it's two minutes longer than the others and so has more time to do interesting things, right down to a harsh vocal from Rodríguez, who's been mostly clean throughout. It's no bad thing to start out a career with a release that doesn't have a single letdown track.

Origen starts things out in alternate metal territory, jangly and jarring but with commercial intent. I love the drums of Diego Vargas here, not just because of what they do but because of what they don't. Sure, he demonstrates both how fast and accurately he can hit those drums but also how effective not drumming at all can be. I'm used to the drums setting the pace and the guitars taking it up, but here the guitars set the pace and the drums are often colour and decoration over them. That's unusual, but very effective.

I think my favourite song may be Homo Homini Lupus, which kicks in with a heartbeat that's taken up seamlessly by those drums. The title is a Latin proverb to highlight that "Man is wolf to man" and the song is an agreeably predatory number with enthusiastic backing vocals. As you might imagine, there are points where Rodríguez goes harsh here, though he's clean for most of the song. It's a faster piece generally, but there's a really nice slowdown midway. Børeal are big Coheed and Cambria fans, so the dynamic play is as unsurprising as it's welcome.

I haven't translated the lyrics, but these songs do seem to play very closely to their titles. Anhedonia is the inability to feel pleasure (it was the original title of Woody Allen's Annie Hall) and Rodríguez is a lot sadder here, even though the drum runs over the guitar solo are joyous. An impressive riff perks him up halfway and highlights once more how the production could have been so much chunkier. That really is my only negative here and, given how audible the subtleties of songs like Boreal are, I'm very aware that bulking up the sound may spoil it completely.

Boreal gets theatrical. Some parts early on remind of Fish in the early days of Marillion and the song grows in similar ways to something like Chelsea Monday, with whispers and dramatics, though it's all wearing alternative clothing rather than neo-prog. There's a lot going on here, from its soft opening with atmospheric keyboards to what almost reaches black metal, immediately after a fluid guitar solo from one of the two guitarists. Kudos to the band for songwriting here as much as their performance.

This all bodes really well for a full length album from Børeal. South America strikes again and from a sixth different country for me in 2020. Clearly I need to make a conscious effort to review more South American releases in 2021. Thanks, Milo.

War Thrashed - Bienvenido a tu ejecución (2019)

Country: Colombia
Style: Thrash Metal
Rating: 6/10
Release Date: 2 Feb 2019
Sites: Facebook | Metal Archives

When a thrash metal band claims something like, Welcome to Your Execution, in whatever language they happen to speak, I'm ready to listen. That's a challenge and I'm waiting. Can Colombia's War Thrashed back up that challenge with their second album, following 2013's Into the Nightmare of Violence, which is recorded entirely in Spanish?

Well, not really, but they do churn out a fine racket and I enjoyed this album. Felipe Gonzalez's vocals are agreeably old school, very raw and reminiscent of the early eighties when thrash was as raw and extreme as it got. He's clearly been listening to early Destruction and he has those patented Schmier screams down.

Gonzalez is actually the new guy in the band, having joined as recently as 2013. Everyone else has been working together as War Thrashed since 2007 and a decade of getting used to each other has left them sounding notably tight, as well as able and very willing to throw intricate little breakdowns out there in between the fast-paced material.

They do like to mix up the pace a lot. As you might expect, there are a lot of breakneck sections where they get their heads down and blister onward, but there are also a lot of mid-paced sections where they don't slow down to slow but do notably lessen the pace. I wonder how that dynamic plays out in the pit. I'd be very interested in finding that out in person!

The downside for me isn't in the songs or the quality of the musicians but in the production. I was really digging more consistently fast paced tracks like Muerte inmiente and Invasión thrash, for instance, but, for some bizarre reason, the feet of drummer Stiven Berbeci are far more prominent in the mix than his hands, which meant that the pedals stood out far more than anything else and the songs suffer for that. Give me everything else the man is doing too, please; he plays those other drums and cymbals for a reason!

It's also a short album, just over 26 minutes in length, which makes it shorter even than Reign in Blood, which notoriously appeared in entirety on both sides of its cassette release because of that. I was just getting warmed up with the excellent final three tracks when the album ended, rather abruptly, I might add, when Hipnoreligion just ceases to be.

I'm tempted to seek out Into the Nightmare of Violence, but might not as that features a different vocalist, Bryan Rubiano. I liked Felipe Gonzalez's singing on this one and feel that it fits well with the band. So I'd just like the other half of Bienvenido a tu ejecución instead!

Herteitr - Battleblood (2018)

Country: Colombia
Style: Viking/Folk Metal
Rating: 7/10
Release Date: 16 Dec 2018
Sites: Bandcamp | Facebook | Metal Archives

I just couldn't resist taking a look at this EP, not only because it's an indie release from a pagan/folk/Viking metal band and I have a particular fondness for folk metal, but Heiteitr are a Viking metal band from that best known of all Scandinavian countries, Colombia. Yeah, that caught my eye too.

Now, I have no interest in being elitist in the slightest but it's difficult to imagine people close to the equator in South America drinking out the endless winter night with their battle compatriots and the Thor's hammer in the Herteitr logo emphasises that this is Viking metal in the Scandinavian vein, even with the presence of folk elements like a charango, an Andean lute traditionally made from the shell of an armadillo. How frickin' metal is that?

The charanguista is Yilmer León, one of two guitarists in Herteitr; the other is German Gomez who also plays mandolin and handles vocal duties. In addition to bass and drums, there's also Diego Gómez on accordion and Leo Zauriel playing a variety of wind instruments, which float enticingly above this material. They've been around for a decade but this is their first recording.

I liked Battleblood a lot, even if I ache for more overtly Colombian elements in their sound. Even if it's odd to see Viking metal from outside of Scandinavia (though this isn't unprecedented, given Ymyrgar's exploration of the Norse eddas from Tunisia), folk metal escaped the north long ago and we now have enticing material incorporating folk instruments from cultures as far adrift as Mongolia, Israel and Japan. Now I want to hear Colombian folk metal without the Viking influence (I'll be reviewing some Ecuadorian folk metal tomorrow, which fits that bill wonderfully).

Leaving aside my global folk metal wishlist entirely, this is good stuff, even though we only have four tracks to enjoy. The Pride of War starts off on the right foot with a rousing effort that should have our mugs of mead swaying in appreciation. Battle Cry and By Death Comes Glory ably keep that spirit alive because there isn't a poor track on this album, let alone a bad one. Everyone and everything does its job well.

The real highlight, though, is the seven minute closer, Flames of Fury / Steel Burning. It starts slower, giving us the calm before the storm with traditional instruments, then launches into motion with the guitar down low and the wind up high. Gomez adds his growl and the melody weaves around him. Guitars swirl and chug, then bounce halfway through when things quieten down, presumably as one half of this track makes way for the other. There's a lot going on in this song and I dig all of it.

Now, given that it took Herteitr ten years to get round to an EP, can we have a full length album a little sooner than 2028?