I’m back with the second of my two underground band reviews that I’ve had the privilege of taking so that I can help spread the word about their talent and hopefully help push them forward with their careers and hopefully add one more amazing band into your music library. You’ve probably had enough of this intro and you just want to know which band I’ve been dying to share with you, don’t you? Get stoked because here is Mouth of the Serpent!
Unlike their label mates, The Vile Impurity, the boys in Mouth of the Serpent hail from Los Angeles, have five members, and have been around since 2008. Like The Vile Impurity, Mouth of The Serpent creates some damn heavy death metal tunes with a little progressive touch to them. Mouth of the Serpent decided to take a little bit of a different route from The Vile Impurity and instead tried to create an atmosphere on their brand new EP, Manifest. I don’t have anything against albums with a sense of atmosphere or feeling, but I don’t necessarily feel that an EP provides enough time to create that atmosphere while still having enough time to show off the sheer brutality of your music. Just how I personally feel because listening to the album, I understood what they were trying to do, but I was bored while I had to listen to both an intro and an outro and other unnecessary filler.
All the power to Mouth of the Serpent but I really don’t think the total time of the EP was utilized to it’s absolute best. Minus the atmospheric tracks, the ones that did have vocals and the whole rest of the band doing what they do; they utterly demolished it as far as I’m concerned. The vocals, provided by Max Reis, are on a whole different level. It comes off as normal deathcore/death metal vocals, but then he gets into those extremely low growls and it sort of sounds like a mix of I Declare War and Pathology. Just like The Vile Impurity, Mouth of the Serpent has shockingly good high vocals that can’t help but remind me of a mix of All Shall Perish, The Black Dahlia Murder and AngelMaker. I’m truly disappointed that they didn’t follow in The Vile Impurity’s footsteps and just go straight out with the brutality. But not all bands are the same and they want to do their own thing which I totally respect them for because they’re able to carve their own niche in the death metal community while still keeping listeners entertained and content with their devastating vocals and progressive style of instrumentals. Overall, the release started off shaky, but as I’m finishing up this review and blasting the EP, I have to say it has grown on me quite a bit and will most likely be getting some spins from me for the next several weeks. Despite its short nature, the album brings something that any fan of heavy music will be glad to have in their library!
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