Worldwide Metal: Colombia
Colombia is a vibrant country in South America. A country known for a rich and vibrant culture & diverse landscapes. From the Amazon rainforest to the Andes mountains and Caribbean beaches. Making it a tourist destination for the beaches and environment. While the country has also been marred with drug trade and gang warfare that has affected it’s people, government and culture. With the contrasting culture clashes of peace and violence, did it foster a heavy and brutal metal scene? Today, I look at a couple bands from this country and see how extreme the country is.
The first band I’ll be talking about is Yellow Cross Mutant. A fist-pumping death metal act from Cajicá, Colombia. The band’s debut, 2024’a Bioterrorism in The New Era, captures the sonic onslaught of goregrind and brutal death metal, with elements of thrash and crossover. A one man project helmed by David Esteban Bustamante, the instrumentation and 90’s style production adds that nostalgia to the roots of the Florida death metal scene. I dug the album a lot, even the almost yacht-rock-esque opening tease of “Yellow Cross Mutant”, before the slamming guitars and double bass come full circle. Definitely worth a listen if you love acts like Dying Fetus and Skinless.
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We head into the grindcore/goregrind subgenre with the next band AxCxMxE. Formed in 2009, the band has been pretty active with EP’s throughout the early 2020’s post-pandemic. On the band’s debut Optofobia, the brash, harsh production style and vocal shrieks and gurgles of the band’s front man Nicolás Bahamon, captures that slam/goregrind amalgamation of bands like Gutalax, Amoebic Dysentery and Rompeprop. If you want that unintelligible, disgustingly heavy riff attack from the goregrind genre, their debut is worth a listen.
Heading into a more upbeat genre of metalcore and groove, we have the band Slave Chains. With the band’s debut album Call For Resistance, the band hits that pummeling melodic death metal/metalcore sound from acts like As I Lay Dying and Trivium, while adding that bounce and groove you’d get from a band like Soulfly. Very prevalent on songs like “Lessons” and “Presente Futuro”. Digging the metalcore/groove fusion of a lot of the songs and adds a unique element with the percussion choices on some of the songs.
The last act I’ll be talking about today delves into the depressing and suicidal side of black metal. The band Hüe showcased their take on the dark and hopeless genre with the band’s debut EP Voids of Totality. Featuring moments of clean singing, amongst a bombardment of harsh distorted guitars and drums almost buried behind the wall of distortion and manic screaming. Creating a brash, unyielding and unhinged performance by the vocalist Nothingness. The band officially released their debut album In Love With Suicide in April of this year. With a step up in production quality, and the vocals becoming more sadistic and unnerving (especially on the song “Love is (Not) Hope", the band is definitely stepping into new frontiers and the right direction from their debut EP.
That’s going to do it for my time visiting Colombia. Did you dig some of the bands I featured in this edition? Were there any bands you think other readers should check out? You can also let me know what country I should travel to next, so I can stamp my metal passport on my journey to discover Worldwide Metal.
