Cóndor are a Colombian death/doom/heavy metal band and this is their fourth album.
Cóndor, (with members of Siete Lagunas), play a beguiling and personable mix of death metal and classic doom/heavy metal, at least musically. Vocally, we’re firmly in the territory of formidably daemonic harsh growls for most of the time, (we also get the occasional spoken word part and clean singing on the final song, the folky title track).
Full of hefty metallic riffs stolen from underground 80s metal bands and transferred into an equally underground extreme metal context, the guitars are one of the highlights of this album. The solos and melodies especially, as these are sometimes highly engaging, and at worst still a damn enjoyable listen.
I like that the band are comfortable in delivering this kind of material at all, let alone the fact that they frequently do so without the aforementioned vocals. What they have created here is strong enough and enjoyable enough to stand on its own, so sometimes they quite rightly recognise that the music needs to speak for itself.
The production is unpolished, earthy and organic, allowing the music to breathe warmly into its environment. It feels like it’s been unearthed from some forgotten, classic age, but that doesn’t mean El Valle del Cóndor has nothing to say today.
El Valle del Cóndor is a very enjoyable and charismatic album, one which I urge you to check out.
Wonderbox Metal 