Xibalba-Hasta La Muerte

Southern Lord
2012

California's Xibalba take on a difficult task in that they try to combine sludge with hardcore and push some death elements in there as well. I can admire the undertaking because mixing styles can frequently result in musical growth in done in a way that pulls the best of both worlds. Xibalba begin to pull the thick resonating riffs of drone and the vocalist tries his best let loose some venomous screams over top of it. So "begin" and "try" should let you know that they don't completely pull off the attempt here. That is the case on this album. They have some pieces in place, but when they go to put the whole songs together they leave gaps where there just isn't enough going on. Most of their songs are between three and a half minutes long and five and a half. That's not terribly long yet I still felt like they would leave half a minute passages that just wandered around waiting for someone to step up and do something - anything. They put a lot on their drummer letting him mill around controlling bits where the rest of the band seemed to be sitting back. To be fair the drummer tried and in lesser hands this would have more excruciating. This albums isn't lacking in energy but it is lacking in consistency and ideas. The potential is here, but they need to work a lot harder if they expect people to do more than listen to their album twice and then stick it on a shelf to collect dust.

Labor day reviewathon count-3 down 7 to go 
Time left- two days, eleven hours and around fifty minutes
*I need to review ten albums by the end of Labor Day or I have to listen to Warrant's Cherry Pie. (I really need to get two more done today to be on track to finish this thing on time).