Apparently, there are two death metal bands named Imbrue. I am not sure what the chances of this are. Probably about the same as meeting two people both named Ammonia. But, this shit happens and at least there isn’t any liner note bashing as displayed by the two bands named Corpsevomit. In both cases, I guess the bands didn’t think anyone else would come up with such an "inventive" name and decided not to at least type the name into Google. This is Imbrue from Spain and, like Cerebral Effusion, they display a penchant for the mid to late 90s sound that was popular in Spain.

However, this band is average, and even that is being generous. The band combines a down tuned and heavy sound with some technicality and grind. There is one slight problem; the musicianship leaves a lot to be desired and it, quite frankly, ruins the album. I had spoken about this with the band Terminally Your Aborted Ghost who tried to meld beefy riffs with fretboard wizardry and it just didn’t cut it. This is the case here. The single notes and shredding is off-time and the note selection is questionable at best. They also suffer from poor song structure and most of the songs are full of poorly played riffs at unexpected and annoying times. This really dampened the overall feel of the album and made listening to it tedious.

I had used the word average before to describe this album. This was because there are some bright spots, as rare as they are. One positive is the vocals. At times, they are just heavy as all hell and are quite threatening. However, these vocals only accompany the slow, doom-laden mosh riffs that appear most infrequently. These riffs are friggin’ heavy and nasty and are supplemented by the harsh vocals (check out the 1 minute mark of the song "Red Blood Colour"). The bass drives the dissonant slower riffs but, before you know it, you are thrown into a sequence of poorly played riffs and poor drum patterns (listen on in "Red Blood Colour" - the riff sounds like an awful guitar warm-up session). Its funny how the stronger parts of the album are all centered around the slower riffs. These Wormed-styled riffs are stronger, the drums are played better, and the vocals are nastier. The rest of the album is a wash.

I would recommend to the band to incorporate heavier, slower riffs and pick an influence. There are so many different styles of riffs and they are so poorly played that it drops the overall quality a few notches. Some of the grind parts are decent but they are rarely displayed. A mix of the slower stuff with their style of grind would be quite appealing. But until this happens, this band can be avoided. There are plenty of stronger bands from the Iberian Peninsula.

Written By: Double Ds