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TZOMPANTLI
Beating The Drums Of Ancestral Force

20 Buck Spin (2024)
Rating: 9/10

If ever a record sounded like the musical equivalent to being hunted through the steaming jungle by an ancient clan of cannibals it’s this one, the second full-length heap from this Californian ensemble. I imagine vast mystical Aztec forest temples whose great stones and sacred plateaus shift of their own accord, releasing archaic vapours.

Littered with gargantuan chugs of stop-start menace, Beating The Drums Of Ancestral Force is easily one of the most crushing examples of death-doom metal you will ever experience. And I guarantee that afterwards you’ll feel like you’ve been shit on by a mammoth. The way the band – and there are many of them (11 the last time I counted!) – construct such massive choppy riffs is so formidable, resulting in an unorthodox atmosphere and a suspenseful rhythmic tribal mantra.

Vocally, the voice is a nihilistic gushing of thick ashen sediment; a billowing geyser of guttural smog. Tzompantli boast their own identity by adding strange instrumental streaks, weird whistling injections and a general feel of dread and complete pulverisation channelled via pre-Hispanic Central American lore. There are moments of outright sludge, as well as meaty hardcore too as opening slab ‘Tetzahuitl’ showcases. Just check out the weird “whoops” adding extra uncanny inserts to the hideous chugs provided by the guitars?

The way the horde bring out those suffocating clanks of doom on ‘Tlayohualli’ is remarkable, a giant eerie quake of silt amplified further by the heavyweight drums. Again there is the traditional folk element as chants pepper the monstrous ‘Chichimecatl’, while the funeral doom nuances come to the fore with the monolithic closer ‘Icnocuicatl’. You’ll still become enveloped by more traditional death-doom elements, but throughout you’ll find a number of nods towards a variety of bands like Coffins, Primitive Man, Corrupted and Evoken. The sense of brooding Tzompantli construct leaves the listener standing in awe, as if one is experiencing the formation of some great and powerful wonder.

Cascading funereal riffs may be the order of the day with some cuts, but it’s the evocative ‘Tlaloc Icuic’ – a mere folky interlude – which stirs the pre-Hispanic Mexican cauldron the most. Yes, this sort of ancestrally designed metal has been done before with bands such as Sepultura and Nile, but with Tzompantli there is just something poignant about this release as the posse reflects forlornly on a heritage and past now diluted. Led by the massive bellows of Brian “Itztlakamayeh” Otriz, the sombre sludge here slithers and slogs like an ancient behemoth blessed with Mayan aesthetics.

This is just a titanic release from a band whose name is taken from Mesoamerica and meaning “skull rack”, a structure used to display human skulls of those who were sacrificial victims… you have been warned.

Neil Arnold

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