Sunday Sesh: Peruvian Metal Hordes United!
If you travel to Lima these days you will encounter a sudden explosion of red and white colors. It is the Independence week, and Peruvians are raving with the nationalistic fever of 28th July. So, let’s join in the celebrations with our friends in this corner of South America and get an unholy overdose of great local metal in the process.
Thanks to the benevolence of our editor team, I had the chance to take over our Sunday Sesh, and if you have checked out our blog lately you may know that I had the privilege to hang out in the capital city during these months and met incredible new friends that pitched me some cool metal names that I am so excited to share with you.
So my mission today is to pave your road into this vast country and cover 3 cornerstone bands that forged the current Peruvian metal scene.
3 great metal bands from Peru that will chop yer head!
Mortem
We begin with one of the soldiers in the wild Latino vanguard. They are the mighty (and true) Mortem.
The roots of this bestial ensemble goes way back to 1986, but they are still playing hard enough in 2018 to secure a slot on the last edition of the Maryland Deathfest. While their appearances in their own country are pretty much rare, they still have a large fan base that hails them as one of the leaders of the Peruvian metal scene.
The foundation of the band, according to their drummer Álvaro Cerrón, happened after the release of Slayer’s Reign in Blood. He and his brother thought Slayer went soft with that record, so they decided to turn up the volume to 11 and slap them in their faces with real cult underground music.
Photo by: @Silene.c_fotografiart (Instagram).
To sum it up, Mortem’s style is straight up South American extreme metal. It’s brutal, moody and incorrigibly honest. If you are entering into the jungles, mountains and deserts of our region seeking for more metallic warfare after you listened that some dudes named Sepultura and Sarcofago contributed to the extreme music, then you are in for a treat.
Apart from the incredible demos era, Mortem developed their moody dark aura into five full-length albums filled with diabolical mysticism. There are traces of Possessed and Morbid Angel here and there, but it is safe to say that they have a very unique sound overall.
So, newcomers should really hurry up and get a copy of their first two records, Demon Tales and Devil Speaks in Tongues, to get your souls sacrificed to the dark overlords.
Pay attention to this album and you will tell me it is fucking awesome!
M.A.S.A.C.R.E.
In order to not be confused with our Colombian comrades, the Peruvian band rebranded themselves as a very long acronym that I won’t translate to English because time is short and you deserve your metal meal fast and dirty.
Another group from the old guard. M.A.S.A.C.R.E. formed in Lima during 1984 and is another essential name in the Peruvian metal scene. It wasn’t until later (1991), when they finally released their debut, Sin Piedad, that they began scorching local ears with an intense heavy metal style. In fact, this album was so popular that it landed into different countries, including my nation, Venezuela.
Led by the charismatic high-pitched voice of El Loco Cervantes, the band returned in 1999 with a live album. One year later, Cervantes went out and was replaced by Omar Pizarro, who sang in Demoledor and En Pie de Guerra (an album re-released with English lyrics during 2006).
The latest incarnation of the band is commanded by the writer Adrián del Águila and is now playing a mix of the old-school melodies with a slightly modern metal take. You can hear him on the recent Versos del Inframundo album, and that is a really good one! Additional guitars are also handed by Charlie Parra del Riego, a superb guitar player from the city known for his mad skills and nice covers.
Cool band with a good melodic riffing crafting.
Hadez
Let’s close the circle with more brutal black/death cocktails. So my last recommendation today is Hadez, another old-school name that helped to shape the spirit of Latin-American metal.
Since 1986, these guys have been spitting venomous primitive extremity. The debut Aquelarre saw the dark light of advent in 1993, a fine slice of putrid death metal in vein of Vulcano and Sarcofago (A.K.A. the band you have to listen to stop being a filthy poser). This streak of albums was completed in 2000 by Even If You Die a Thousand Times and the recent Morituri Te Salutant.
Their discography is interceded by a plethora of splits that are worth a shot, since they collaborated with other bands of their style. On September 5th, they will work with God’s Funeral on the tape Bicéfalo Culto Ancestral.
If you want to give this band a chance, go and listen Aquelarre. It is an album filled with the morbid atmosphere of raw black/thrash latino madness but with a more doom approach sometimes. Conclusion: is evil as shit and you definetely have to listen to it.
You will thank me later for that, I know.
This marks the end for me today. Hope you really liked this fine selection of Peruvian metal, and, if you need more, just message us out and I will deliver more content directly from the Toilet ov Hell South American Embassy. There are so many good bands over here! Happy holidays to our friends over here!
