SINAYA – Maze Of Madness

Despite being primarily thought of as a very male dominated universe, death metal has spawned some fantastic female-fronted acts over the years. Landmine Massacre – particularly during the Grace Perry era – are one of the finest and better known, but there have been a lot of underground acts truly flying the flag. Here’s another: Brazilian all-female melodic death band Sinaya.

The band’s earlier recordings (2013’s ‘Obscure Raids’ EP and 2015’s ‘Blinded By Terror’ single) showed off more than a fair amount of talent but were marred by low budgets and muddy production. Since then, they’ve had a change in line up, supported thrash legends Exodus and have become a much stronger and better band. Their 2018 album ‘Maze of Madness’ is a release that finally does their studio recordings justice, having the kind of budget and production job that allows some great riffs to breathe and not be smothered by a demo quality sound.

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VULTURE WINGS – Funeral Grounds EP

vulture-wings-epDespite being billed as a death metal band, the material that makes up the bulk of Brazilian outfit Vulture Wings’ debut EP is surprising. Their music is very heavy, but retains almost none of the relentless pneumatics so often associated with the genre. This, of course, has the potential to make ‘Funeral Grounds’ a more accessible listen than most – provided that is, of course, you can get your head around a growling vocal.

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SOULTHERN – Rock You Till Die EP

soulthernGlance at the band logo for this fledgling Brazilian band and there’s every chance you’ll assume they’re called Southern and you might expect something along the lines of Black Stone Cherry. A closer look and that stray and somewhat mysterious L appears, but there’s no soul on offer here either. As you can probably guess from the band photo on the sleeve – a design that conjours up memories of 7”s with DIY wraparound artwork – we’re in very retro metal territory with this demo quality release. In fact, ‘Rock You Till Die’ [sic] is so unashamedly old school metal with a capital M, you might even think these three guys had been in a coma since 1984.

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SON OF A WITCH – Son Of A Witch EP

son of a witchOn their self-titled debut EP, Brazilian stoner merchants Son of a Witch pull elements from some superb influences and in turn, end up sounding pretty fabulous themselves.  Adopting a general approach which fuses the best parts of Down and Orange Goblin, their riffs are among the best to emerge from a generation of post-Sabbath doom merchants.

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