I’ll admit that my knowledge of Brazilian metal (and Brazilian music itself) doesn’t extend far beyond the major players, but when Max sent me links to about a dozen current doom bands from there, I was pretty intrigued. After giving them all a good listen, I was also impressed and with faced with a conundrum. All of them are damn good and really worthy of a review on their own. I did ultimately decide to cull the list down to the five that stood out to me personally. I also tried to get a good mix of styles, as many on the original 12 were heavily in the stoner groove.
I can say this: Belo Horizonte -- home to Sepultura and Sarcofogo -- really must be the capital of Brazilian heavy metal because many of these bands call that city home. Also, I was impressed with the vocalists of all these bands, almost all of whom sing clean and possess some serious pipes.
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| Art by Cristiano Suarez. |
The first band on the list, and the clear standout in many ways is Necro, a young, female-fronted psychedelic doom trio that released two singles in August and September of last year, and their first full-length (Adiante) in December. With clear influences including Budgie, Deep Purple and Wishbone Ash, Necro’s sound featuring multi-part rhythm changes, freak-out guitar solos and the odd Mellotron touch just to chill things out.
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| Art by T. Witchlover. |
In October of 2015, Necro released a split with another band, Witching Altar, (see here and here) which unfortunately doesn’t seem to be currently active (that split was the last thing they have listed on Bandcamp). That’s unfortunate because Witching Altar -- especially on that split -- offers a heady mixture of of Uncle Acid’s trippy melodies and Pentagram’s foreboding gloom, with a little hit of The Hellacopters’ speed and sneer.
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| Artwork: Lucas Krepa |
Hailing from Florianopolis, Muñoz operates pretty firmly in the stoner groove, with bluesy, fat riffs and head-bobbing grooves. Check out their September, 2016, release, Smokestack.
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Fallen Idol offers bombastic epic doom in the vein of Candlemass with fist-pumping riffs complemented perfectly by Rodrigo Sitta’s powerful, clean, high voice.
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| Artwork by Daniel Bretas. |
Fans of The Blues Pills and Blood Ceremony will love this witchy, female-fronted band, whose name translates to Dune, Breeze and Flame. Their January, 2016, release features evocative vocals by Anna Martinez, over fuzzy guitars and heavily foreboding keyboards.
If you’d like to check out the other bands on the list:
HellLight - Pesta - Cattarse - Abske Fides
Fuzzly - Ruínas de Sade - Pantanum
HellLight - Pesta - Cattarse - Abske Fides
Fuzzly - Ruínas de Sade - Pantanum