AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): LUCIFERA — “LA CACERIA DE BRUJAS”

 

It wouldn’t be wrong-headed to label the music of La Caceria De Brujas as “black thrash”, but that label really doesn’t do it justice. For most of its 39-minute duration, this fourth album by Colombia’s Lucifera is a brazen race, fueled by the kind of feral ferocity that most people have come to expect from South American devil-thrash, but there’s uncommon depth to this music. As fierce and scorching as the music is, it’s also loaded with melodic hooks, and it achieves a feeling of divine Bacchanalian glory — summoning visions of wild exultation, of spirits set free by sorcerous conjurations.

La Caceria De Brujas will be released by the German label Dunkelheit Produktionen on February 25th (with a vinyl edition coming the next month), and today we’re presenting a full stream of this remarkable album.

 

Photo by Adi Hernandez

 

Even people who are already sworn fans of Lucifera are going to find that this talented duo (multi-instrumentalist David HellRazor and vocalist Alejandra Blasfemia) have out-done themselves, hitting new heights of songwriting prowess and performance skill. The music melds flashing fretwork, pulse-pounding rhythms, and absolutely incinerating vocals to a changing array of melodies that hit home really fast and get stuck like barbed lances. Some songs are more viciously “blackened”, some more thrash-centric, but all of them burn with infectious energy and a kind of mad, devilish grandeur.

One of the most immediately infectious songs (maybe the catchiest of them all) is the well-chosen opener, “Arde En Llamas“. It’s an audio blast furnace, the doors thrown open to boiling phosphorescent flames. Backed by hammering drums and a thundering bass, HellRazor blazes through a fiery, writhing riff with an immediate melodic hook (another glorious melodic hook comes later), paired with a pulsing thrash riff and accented by the tolling of a bell, as Blasfemia delivers a truly scorching vocal performance, shrieking in demonic exultation.

From that fast-paced start, the album mainly stays in high gear, with pacing that varies between Formula One speed and the fast lane on an open highway, which is to say it’s a nearly non-stop rush. The opener is followed in quick succession by the thrash bombast of “Sigillum Diaboli” and the skittering riffage and pounding rhythms of “Sortilegio“, where occasional cold-blooded roars join the vocal mix and a flickering melody nearly steals the show.

 

The first break in the band’s rampant attack doesn’t come until the witchy, ritualistic intro to “Ceremonia Secular” (an excerpt from Mark Korven‘s soundtrack to the movie The Witch – Witch’s Coven), which seems like the sounds of an occult blood-letting and the emergence of luciferian powers. When the song does begin, in a mid-paced tempo, the lead melody still sounds sorcerous, but also seductive, anchored by a big gravel-toned bass pulse and a head-nodding drum cadence. Inflamed by blistering vocal lunacy, the song becomes increasingly intense, whirling like a dervish lit by an eerie luminosity.

After that change of pace and mood, it’s off to the races again with the bleak but berserker tandem of “Pacto Pagano” and “Conjuro”, with their frenzied but tension-filled, hornet-swarm riffs, maniacal bass patterns, physically arresting drum rhythms, and larynx-shredding vocal cacophony. The latter also features uproariously whirling leads and wisps of ominous male vocals, as well as one of the album’s few solos — and it’s an unabashed fret-melter.

“Brujeria” is also a speedy affair, the combination of blasting drums, crazed riffing, and blood-freezing vocals combining to create images of a mad necromancer exulting in her power, spinning like a top in the midst of a bonfire. True to the song’s title, the song segues into a guitar harmony that shimmers and shines with an unearthly, mesmerizing light before breaking into another riotous eruption of hell-for-leather blasting and galloping.

To close the album, Lucifera deliver a big surprise, an instrumental track in which the band spread their creative wings (draconic wings, to be sure). Perhaps because it is such a surprise, it’s one of the album’s most memorable seven minutes. Eerie pinging tones over deep ominous reverberations quickly create an atmosphere of horrifying yet charismatic majesty. The band push the song’s energy forward with a hammering snare and a vibrant, craggy bass pulse, paving the way for a guitar lead that flickers and glows, mystifying the listener’s mind while setting nerve endings alight with a glorious paranormal gleam, and that melodic refrain becomes more and more captivating as it loops through this transcendent track.

If you do nothing else, listen to the first track and the last one, and the odds are high that you’ll be hooked, and hooked hard enough to want to hear everything else.

 

All of the music was recorded at HR Studios in Pasto, Colombia, an dmixed and mastered at the same studio. All vocals were recorded at Evil Sounds Studio by Satanic Warlord, in Quito, Ecuador. The lyrics were crafted by seven different women from Central and South America.

Look for the album on CD and digitally on February 25th. Release of a vinyl LP version is set for March 18th. Pre-orders for everything can be placed now:

PRE-ORDER:
http://dunkelheitprod.bandcamp.com/album/la-caceria-de-brujas

LUCIFERA:
https://www.facebook.com/luciferacolombia