Just a couple of days ago Spain’s pillar of the underground Death Metal scene Memento Mori officially released CANCERBERO’s new album “Sempiternal Decay” on CD. Chile’s CANCERBERO has existed on and off since the late ‘80s and unlike some legendary Metal acts deciding to make a comeback they actually do a very good job with it. There’s no artificial intelligence generated artwork here, but a primitive drawing by Memento Mori’s frequent collaborator Mörtuus. The overall sound of the album is also quite primitive and organic, the drums for example are reverberating naturally while blasting away. Listening to this album will make you imagine not some guy sitting in front of a laptop recording his eleventh take of the same guitar riff, but a bunch of old school maniacs sweating it out in a dark basement. I think the fact that Chile has in recent years become a sort of Death Thrash and Death Metal nucleus has really made it possible to take young blood into the fold while keeping the music old school and extreme. The musical style combines old school Death Metal tremolo riffing with some riffs that can only be described as South American: they come from a time when Death Metal and Black Metal didn’t yet exist and the tapes coming out of this place were driving the global scene in an arms race for musical extremity. There’s also an abundance of guitar solos in each song that brings to mind an Eddie Van Halen approach to guitar playing. At times it feels really over the top, I mean on a song like ‘Infernal Fire’ I lost count of how many guitar solos I’ve heard and I can probably say that about most songs on the album. None of them are very melodic, mostly fast and intense. There are whammy bar dives, some sweep picking, scale runs and even a varied set of guitar effects like flanger and left-right ping pong panning, the lead guitar employing almost every trick in the bag and not just in the solo parts, but small touches sprinkled throughout the songs. It reminds me a bit of DEATH ANGEL’s album “The Ultra Violence”, specifically the song ‘Voracious Souls’ with its myriad of lead guitar interventions. An important aspect is the use of riffs that wouldn’t be considered Death Metal riffs by themselves and are severely missing from modern iterations of Death Metal where brutality reigns supreme. The song ‘Bollocide (Deathrashing Chaos)’ has a typical IRON MAIDEN chord progression at some point and a couple of riffs in ‘Obscure Rites’ seem very playful, but I think they contribute to the general feel of being an old school Metal band and also having a clear image of what extreme Metal can be without resorting to cliches. Another such song is ‘Serpent’s Domain’ which has one particular riff that stood out to me as an example of how this band isn’t afraid of experimenting with riffs that don’t sound typical. Trust me, you’ll hear it when it starts. And don’t forget: all these little curiosities are completely surrounded by tremolo picking, blast beats, lots of guitar solos, and gruff growled vocals. CANCERBERO’s “Sempiternal Decay” seems like the perfect good time for an old school Metal maniac. While it certainly sounds evil, it’s also quite entertaining and I can already imagine a frenzy of devil horns and spilled beer manifesting itself in front of the stage at one of their live shows. www.facebook.com/cancerbero-deathmetal-110006759156530, www.facebook.com/memento.mori.label