It’s easy to become overly nostalgic in this ‘job’; Music either makes you feel like ‘everything was better in the old days’ or is so accurately cast in the past as to take you back in your mind to your salad days, causing a wistful smile and a little choke of emotion…

Obviously it’s not a good thing to dwell in the past all the time, but when you are confronted by the resolutely outmoded – as you are by Spanish outfit Teratoma‘s new album, Chaosmakers – it’s pretty hard not to go with the flow if you’re a death metal fan of a certain age and just start windmilling.

These guys are not a bunch of avantgarde, wet-behind-the-ears post modernists – their first demo came out in 1996 – so we can cut them some slack on the ‘old-fashioned front’. In fact, there’s something very comforting indeed about the no-frills, heads down assault of tracks like When Body Melts, which pretty much fulfil any old school itch you might feel needs scratching.

Devil’s Food (The Secret Flesh) is an absolute ripper of a track, fusing primal early Sepultura thrash dynamics to the grinding rhythms of bassist Joxi and percussion pal Sergi, who is a beast of a drummer; he lays down an unrelenting barrage of snare over which guitarists Juanma and Juanjo whip up a maelstrom of riffs that’s a delight to the correctly-attuned ear. Solos are swift, to the point and slightly dissonant – just as you like them – with the overall feel being yes, traditional, but definitely not ready for the bus pass just yet…

To top it off you’ve got vocalist Tito, who possesses that classic blast furnace belch of a voice, exuding pure sulphur on the excellent title track and generally keeping things on the right side of brutal throughout.

It’s actually pretty hard to review an album like Chaosmakers, as it conforms to it’s self-built boundaries so well there’s little or nothing to take issue with. Death metal, straight up, nothing more nothing less – if that sounds good to you then you know what to do…



Chaosmakers is out now.