Mala Suerte – The Shadow Tradition (IllWill Recordings)
By Chris Barnes
August 22, 2009
Mala Suerte have been making the Texas terra firma shake with unrelenting frequency since 2000. I was lucky enough to catch the band in Dallas 20001 when they played the Red Blood Club along with a host of great bands, at ¾’s of them no longer existing. Somehow, Mala Suerte have beaten the odds, very near to hitting the 10 year mark of existence. That’s a rarity for any band, let alone an underground Occult-fueled Doom Metal Band.
If you’re a fan of pummeling, crust-infested Doom Metal there are several reasons to dig
The Shadow Tradition. Number one, it’ll liquefy your brain matter. This is a H-E-A-V-Y mofo, there are no ethereal moments to lighten the mood beside some reverb-drenched fuzz guitar on “The Monks of Medenham”. It’s hammer-to-anvil, stripped-down and nonstop – similar musically to
SerpentCult and especially
Warchetype with a guitar tone sounding slightly similar to Greg Anderson’s in Goatsnake. There’s nary a solo to be had nor a chorus – it’s about the ‘crush’ of the sound and Rosa’s distinctive roar. Second, if you dig the Occult, you gotta check out Rosa’s lyrics – the man is gifted, I couldn’t begin to come up with any of this stuff. He’s darkly prolific in that Lovecraftian way, but references Occult-laden people, places and things that I’ve never heard of before... and I’ve heard a lot. Third, you’ll want to dig Gary’s artwork. As prolific as his words, his art on the outside of the fold-out booklet is insane… he’s like an Occult version of the late, great
Rick Griffin. It’s a tree of some sort whose roots include a tip of the hat to the band’s influences including what appears to be Albert Witchfinder, Alistair Crowley, Charles Manson, Lovecraft, Milton, Christopher Lee and Anton LeVey among others.
The only fault I find with the
The Shadow Tradition is it’s lack of differentiation in tempo –
The Way Of The Reversal is a high-speed molar-shaker, I would have liked to have heard a few more uptempo numbers. But when you’re dealing with heady head-rumblers like, “Entrance/Black Art”, “The Hound” and especially the epic last track
The Shadow Tradition (I have no idea how Rosas is going to remember all those lyrics…) all can be forgiven.
Mala Suerte have landed a keeper, I can tell that a lot of blood, sweat and tears went into this offering from the music right down to the details in the packaging. If more bands were to forgo the Photoshop or borrowed Medieval woodcuttings and paintings route, there’d probably be more talk of the album as a whole instead of
just the music.
The Shadow Tradition screams for a vinyl pressing with poster. It’s too good not to get that treatment.
Purchase The Shadow Tradition at the Hellride Music Superstore
Listen to an MP3 of Entrance/Black Art
Visit the Mala Suerte website at www.myspace.com/malasuerte
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