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).

Xibalba-Madre mia gracias por los dias

Southern Lord
2011

Not to be confused with the Mexican black metal band of the same name, these guys actually from California. I was kind of torn on this album so lets get at the positive first. Xibalba have a deep, heavy plodding hardcore sound not far off from early Hatebree. They begin almost every song with a lot of force and never veer off. The production is solid and provides their sound with a fair amount of depth. Okay, the downside and there most definitely is one. Their lack of varation in the tempo department makes many of their sonds very tedious and difficult to take. The vocals occasionally pick up steam, but not the music. Several times during this album my thoughts were "is this song still going on?". That's never a good sign.I gave this album several chances and I like parts of it. Ultimately they came across as a band with some determination and some basic skills, but they lack the ideas to make this album worth hearing in it's entirety. Maybe they were hoping that their heaviness would make up for their lack of creativity, but unfortunately they aren't heavy of forceful enough to cover up their shortcomings.