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Hatenation arose from the ashes of Afterlife, the Barcelonans are now presenting their debut which is called Blacklist.
The kick off with Countdown, a track based on a heavy groove which offers speed changes and deep growls of shouter Carlos Olmedilla. For the title track they speed up and somehow the fast track with breaks and mid-paced parts works much better. Blacklist is a guitar-driven up-tempo tune with a heavy groove and some complex parts. At Internal Sickness they offer some slow parts, bit Down-ish while Sons Of The Shamed God is a heavy riff-based tune which is quite melodic in the beginning. Later the guitars bring back the melodic element, but Carlos vocals growls won't fit to it... At Unknowledge Fields they surprise with a slow, melodic passage, but then they speed up again. Actually it's the growls which give the songs an aggressive edge, but with a different sounding singer they probably would get the attention of more fans... Drummer Luís Fontes opens up Dread Sky with a different drum pattern, a bit tribal-like, and bassist Juan A. Núñez adds some prominent parts while the guitarists add heavy riffs and melodic leads, just Carlos' vocals are too one-dimensional. Towards the end the guys show more variety, some memorable melodies and interesting guitar play. Visions shows this very well.
In my opinion the vocals are the weak spot of the Hatenation sound, beside that the first songs are a bit too much alike and perhaps a different order would have done the album good. Anyway, it's a debut, so check it out and if this time they can't convince you, then keep an eye on them and perhaps next time they will.
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