Chasm, The – The Spell of Retribution
I’ve been sitting on this one for ages for the simple fact that I’ve said just about every positive thing in my vocabulary regarding the greatness of Chicago’s The Chasm. To me, they are the perfect death metal band, effortlessly embracing the hard and twisted brutality of the genre, while mixing a brilliant true metal spirit that offsets the aggression with dueling guitar lines and a triumphant thrust in the music that’ll bang every head within earshot. In hindsight, all the amazing previous albums leading up to “The Spell of Retribution”, were building blocks it seems, preparing the masses for this new album where every song is a fatal strike of superior greatness. Hook bloated riffs lay down the foundation for Julio Vinterbo and Daniel Corchado to feed off of each other and lay down some amazing lead work. Every track flows like a mighty stream that is warm to the touch, which allows the listener to fall into each composition to become lost in the layered guitar lines and almost hypnotic drum work of Antonio Leon. Leon has truly become an amazingly colorful drummer, always offering the song such fluid fills for the transitions and his general sense of giving each riff a unique rhythmic foundation makes him a very creative weapon in The Chasm’s arsenal. With his free spirit rhythmic choices, he follows the guitar lines and somehow makes them even more musical which is hard for most drummers to achieve since so many try to show off with their performance. “The Spell of Retribution” is easily The Chasm’s darkest release, made even more diabolical by Corchado’s increasingly dank and punishing dungeon vocals. The man sounds as if his tortured soul is screaming out of him with utter dismay and yearning for the grave. He rarely follows the riff ideas which allows his vocal lines to stand independent and become yet another vibrant layer to this albums dense metal canvas. The Chasm sounds like no one else due to their brilliant and sinister South American musical influences. They continue to explore some truly atypical guitar lines that ebb and flow into deadly harmonies that don’t shy away from the occasional acoustic guitar accompaniment as found on the excellently mature track, “Retribution of the Lost Years”. So much passion and emotion seeps from every note of this music, it is hard not to become lost in this bands endless journey to uphold the finer characteristics of death metal. All hail the metal of death! All hail The Chasm! – Marty
WICKED WORLD
Worm Gear 