In the mood for some groove-laden progressive death metal? If so, then you've come to the right place and you should continue reading. Spain's Moonloop have delivered such a recording with their new CD Deeply From the Earth, a fun yet challenging listen that might not be very original but is still so well played and so well crafted that you have to enjoy it for what it is. One pass through the CD and you can easily hear the influences of Gojira, Opeth, Gorguts, Obscura, Death, and Between the Buried and Me (and, if you are going to be influenced by any progressive/extreme acts, that's a good crowd), but these guys have enough of their own identity so it doesn't come across as out and out mimickry.
"Beginning of the End" and "A Life Divided" has those killer stop/start riffs and string scrapes that you so often hear in the music of Gojira and Gorguts, while "Fading Faces" has some truly delicious riffs that are right out of the Blackwater Park playbook from Opeth. The vocals of guitarist Eric Baule are very well done, as his growls have plenty of menace but you can understand everything he is saying. He and Juan Jose Martin make a great axe duo, laying down no shortage of heavy, intricate riffs throughout tracks such as "Strombus", "Legacy of Fear", and "Landscape", while the band goes for more progressive and epic sounds on the textured numbers "Deceiving Time", "Wailing Road", and the 11-minute closer "Atlantis Rising". It's on these songs that the 'progressive metal' side of the band really comes to the forefront, and here they really show how much they have to offer. Lots of atmosphere, lush acoustic passages, extreme & clean vocals, and moments of technical & brutal metal ferocity.
Once you get past the fact that Moonloop wear their influences on their proverbial sleeves, Deeply From the Earth then reveals itself to be quite a dramatic opus of progressive death metal. Seek this one out!
Track Listing
1. Awakening Spirals Of Time
2. Beginning Of The End
3. A Life Divided
4. Fading Faces
5. Strombus
6. Deceiving Time
7. Legacy Of Fear
8. Wailing Road
9. Landscape
10. Atlantis Rising
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