Katun

Now before I start rambling on with the same point as the other reviews here, let me first emphasize the rating I gave this album: 90 because it is awesome. Everyone has commented about the production, which is exactly what separates this album from Venganza, and from many other death metal bands of late. The crude and almost open-air style sound sets an interesting ambient for the unleashed brutality of the album. I think the production was purposely made to sound like that, and I think that it was a good idea. Hacavitz is all about primitive hatred and ancient evil, and what better way to excentuate that then with a raw production.

As mentioned in another review, the riffs are more thrashy in nature and I think even the distortion used is a bit different, more high toned and crunchy. Although it is a bit low in the mix, the guitar work is amazing and relentless. The drumming is even more brutalized than in Venganza, although the production does make it sound less powerful. The snare and ride do sound a little too much out it in the open, but other then that it is flawless. The instruments combine with the crude vocals of Antimo to create a hostile and cold; yet surprisingly brutal environment.

I felt that this cd deserved a higher rating than previously granted due to the originality of the sound. Most bands that use crude production sound either boring or terrible (not in a good way), and Hacavitz really pulls it off. I believe that the production helps the sound that Hacavitz is trying to expell, and opens up a new perspective of raw death metal.

After listening to the monster that "Venganza" is, I was expecting way too much when I knew Hacavitz would release a new album called "Katun". While "Venganza" was extremely powerful and very well produced (even better than Disgorge's "Necrholocaust"), Katun lacks a lot in production.

What you get by listening to this album is a total blast of bad-mixed instruments: Drums at very high volume levels (specially the snare and the ride cymbal) which completely eat away any sound the guitar could have. Even though the voice still sounds like Antimo's previous work with Hacavitz it sounds way too saturated, making the lyrics even more un-understandable without the booklet.

However, not everything is lost, for the musicianship of this album is simply brutal. Oscar is faster than ever in the drums: not even a single beat dropping and adding more life to all the songs with some good drum fills, also there are some slow sections that make each track stand out from the others, which is somewhat unusual for a drummer like Oscar because Venganza was a non-stop brutality frenzy. As for the riffs, (all played by Antimo) they are somewhat different to Hacavitz previous work, as if Antimo actually wanted to make a regression by putting riffs more oriented to Thrash-Black Metal. This is even more evident in some songs like the Dark Angel's cover "Hunger of the Undead", in which the voice also adds to that Thrashy atmosphere.

Overall, this could have been an awesome album if not by the crappy production (that's the reason of this album's low rating). In this matter Venganza totally wipes out Katun, but I wonder how would Katun sound with Venganza's Production.

Stand-out tracks: Hunger of the Undead (Dark Angel cover), Tinieblas Tenochtitlán, Omitzhuicazquia Tezcatlipoca, Rex Funebre

It’s sad when good bands don’t get the proper attention they deserve. I’ve said it over and over again that with this modern music industry, too many good bands get looked over when too many bands get proper funding and label deals they need. Had HACAVITZ received some good funding for the recording of “Katun”, the album would have been a lot better. Unfortunately, the poor production values are a little too much to overcome even with the talent that HACAVITZ has.

The production is circa 1981 and even though a subgenre such as Death Metal feeds off of a raw sound, this album will only appeal to those willing to overlook some of the production flaws or those who dwell in that raw live sound. It’s a shame really because HACAVITZ does have a lot of great moments on the album and there is a lot of talent in all of the members.

The guitar work (amazingly done by one individual on the album) is well written and performed. Fast as lightning riffs mixed with a solid dose of technicality keep the guitars going at breakneck speeds without becoming to overwhelming to the listeners. The leads are well incorporated and when the solos came ripping out (there were only 3 or 4 songs that had solos unfortunately) they were quite diverse and well performed. The guitar production is a little quiet and pushed to the back to really be a brutal sound but they are well written and performed.

The bass work is non-existent. I caught some glimpses of bass lines here and there at times, but in true Death Metal fashion most of the bass is lost in the flurry of drums and guitars. Once again, had the production been a little more even the bass may have been a bigger influence and the heavy end of the music would be deeper.

The drums are well played and written but I am not sure what the mixer and producers were thinking when they microphoned them. The snare and cymbals are far too loud in comparison with rest of drum parts, the bass drums sound very hollow in comparison. Even though the drumming is pretty spectacular with great variety the overall drum sound suffers.

The vocals have a very unique quality to them on “Katun”. The obvious idea behind the recording was to have a very raw and live quality to them, thusly there is a lot of echo effect on the vocals. And despite the vocals having hardly any volume (at least compared to the drums) the sound is relatively interesting. At first I thought the echo effect would annoy me but it actually just grew on me, it helps that the vocalist does try quite a bit of variety with his vocals too to help shape the sound of each individual track.

The album is surprisingly good once one tears away all the production value. The band mix a lot of concepts with their Death Metal approach by adding atmospheric song intros and changing up the tempo every once in a while. This band has a lot of talent but to really shine they need receive a little better production values.

Songs to check out: “Ya Notsi De Huitzil”, “Tenieblas – Tenochtitlan”, “From Sin To Honour”.

Originally written for Metal Observer.