Label: Lux Inframundis Productions
Date: May 27th, 2022
The Chasm “The Scars of a Lost Reflective Shadow” So let’s move to the third largest city of the USA, even if originally band’s coming from the capital city of the southern neighbor land of the States. In my opinion this is a legendary group and personally I can’t imagine someone not knowing it. Well, actually I didn’t do it since I got to know people who know nothing about Immolation. Now nothing will confuse me then! But even if it’s like that, it doesn’t mean I’ll write their biography or something on here! Instead you’ll search for it by yourselves. I can only tell you the band was created by an ex-member of another even more legendary Mexican death metal band.What band I’m speaking about and so on? Well, you have to dig a little and check it out by yourselves! Especially since there are only a few clicks you need to do. And if you’re too lazy to do it, it’s not my problem to be honest.
“The Scars…” is the ninth full-length and contains nomen est omen nine songs mentioned two lines before the sub-genre of our beloved music. The first one is instrumental which takes more than two minutes. And this isn’t the only reason why you can’t call it intro, by the way. It maybe begins with something you could call mini intro or so, but that’s it and in my opinion it’s still some abuse to call it bu intro. By the way, musically that is death metal and of course old school one. Why did I write “of course”? Well, because I noticed most of the bands coming from the southern neighbor land of the States play like this. I mean, it seems most Mexican (the same like Central and South Americanas well) metalheads are quite conservative ones and that’s why practically all groupsfrom there create music who could be created in the nineties or so. The same is with The Chasm, even if for more then two decades this is, we can say, an American ensemble. Butas I know this was, is and probably always will be Daniel who creates the music. That’s why I find more similarities with mentioned above, even if not directly, and another legend, importunately not existing anymore, from Mexico City called Shub Niggurath then with for example the one coming from Tampa, Florida where Troy is the only original member (since 1984). Tempo isn’t too fast here. Honestly this is the middle one and some huge speed ups happen quite rarely. They’re first of all about drums, actually. Riffs, as it should be, are variable and at the same time create some sick melodies, but not in the meaning of melodic death metal! They’re not the broken ones and you won’t hear some advanced guitar tricks. Of course there’s a lot of technique on a high level in Daniel’s play, which also takes bass, but this technique is a little hidden. I mean, you need to listen to it carefully to be able to appreciate this.
As I said before this is pure death metal with some elements of thrash. Well, maybe even better to say: some influences echo quite far echoes of this sub-genre of metal. This is also not too hard to recognize them in Antonio’s drumming, by the way. Well, this is even more hearable in the case of drums then guitar, if you ask me. And if you didn’t do it, it doesn’t matter, because I already said (wrote) it. Anyways, both musicians (both of them, Daniel and Antonio, are the original ones) are very experienced ones, what guarantee very well quality of the music – both technically and, let’s call it, creatively. To sum up my implication I tell you only two things. The first one is: this is a very good album and I really recommend it to all fans of death metal. But as I wrote, also thrashers will find something that they’ll like in this music. I know it’ll be the very first contact with The Chasm for some of you (actually I think most of you). And that’s one more asset of “The Scars…”. I mean, “consumption” of this full-length will make you curious for their earlier releases and you get them willingly. The second reflection is not really about the album, but about the band as itself. At the moment The Chasm is once again only a duo. So hopefully Daniel and Antonio will find some bassist to be able to play gigs again! I know it is possible to play them even without bass, but let’s be honest – in such cases music loses something important.
