Hailing from Queretaro, Mexico, The Pit will celebrate two decades of existence next year. Like other bands with such a long career, life has gotten in the way, and their recording output hasn’t been prolific. Until this year, their discography consisted of only a debut split in 2006 and a debut album (Disrupted Human Symmetry) in 2008. But now, 15 years later, Personal Records will soon be discharging The Pit‘s aptly named second album, Of Madness and Evil Whispers.
As one might expect, the line-up has changed in the interim, although original guitarist Antonio Nolasco, original bassist Octavio Olachea, and original vocalist Guillermo Galván are all still in harness together on the new album, joined by new drummer Mauricio Villalón and new second guitarist Angel Villegas.
Also not entirely surprising, The Pit have moved their music in different directions as compared to what you can hear on their first full-length, and the results are — in a word — electrifying. Where The Pit now thrive is in the unleashing of high-speed, high-power death metal fueled by ruthless ferocity, but also embedded with equally ruthless hooks that get stuck in the head, and simultaneously channel an array of dark and demented moods — which is to say that they are damned effective songwriters.
We’ve got two great examples of the sinister yet hurricane-strength power of the new album in two songs we want to share today, including one we’re premiering.
The song we’re premiering, “Aeons of Hate“, is one of those turbocharged onslaughts that make us think music might actually be capable of powering humongous turbines capable of lighting up an entire metropolis.
Not to put too fine a point on it, “Aeons of Hate” is full-bore slaughtering. The Pit establish the mood of the song by immediately bludgeoning the listener and then scorching the ears with a mad howl that goes on and on, and a dose of roiling and writhing riffage that feels like someone teleported a burning viper nest straight into your brain.
From there the drummer hammers and clatters at high-octane speed, the bassist feverishly adds to the beating, and one of the guitars starts discharging an urgent pulsating sensation that adds to the music’s blood-lusting but addictive barbarism. Speaking of barbarism, Guillermo Galván‘s ferocious snarls and rabid howls sound like someone succeeded in creating a half-lion, half-human hybrid but had to sacrifice the predatory creature’s sanity to make it work.
The track’s violently writhing and riotous energy and typhoon-strength power are a highly infectious form of audio chaos, but as the tremolo’d chords rise and fall in the midst of the mayhem, they channel a feeling of dismal agony as well as red-hot fury, and the wailing, warbling, and convulsing of a fire-bright solo adds to the feeling of dire distress. But though these accents enhance the song’s emotional dynamism, at its core it’s still a brazen, brutalizing, and bamboozling calamity straight through to the end.
If you’re like us, that song will leave you hungry, and maybe even famished, for more of this fireball extravagance. As mentioned earlier, there is one other song from the album out in the world, and it’s more than a minute longer than the mad rush of “Aeons of Hate“.
What you’ll encounter in “Megalithic Imprisonment” is (in part) a different side of The Pit‘s creative impulses. The bone-cracking power of the band is still on display, but from the beginning, it creates an atmosphere of grim apocalyptic catastrophe. The pace is slower, even though the drumming injects exhuilarating outbursts, and the riffs seem to heave and plead in pain rather than set the listener’s blood boiling.
But The Pit do also dial up the heat of the music, as well as its destructiveness. The rapidly vibrating guitar buzzes, whirs, and bores into the brain like a drill bit, and a shrill second guitar spasms, as the rhythm section create a high-speed avalanche. The melodic quotient of the music, however, still sounds like the torment of agony, and the vocals are as violently apoplectic as ever.
There’s a shivering guitar solo in this one, too, but it’s no less agonized in its mood, and for good measure the band add the slow undulating moan of a new guitar motif near the end that feels like unadulterated misery — while the rest of the band fire up a jackhammer on your neck.
Lyrically, the new album was “influenced by Lovecraftian mythology, the unknown horrors of the universe, and ineffable entities of death who despise humanity”. The album comes recommended for fans of Dead Congregation, Ignivomous, Phrenelith, and latter-day Imprecation. It’s available for pre-order now from Personal Records, in advance of its July 14 release.
PRE-ORDER:
https://personal-records.bandcamp.com/album/of-madness-and-evil-whispers
FOLLOW THE PIT:
https://www.facebook.com/ThePitMexicanDeath