Oniricous - La caverna de fuego

ONIRICOUS - La caverna de fuego (EQUINOX DISCOS - CD 2016)

Oniricous really caught my attention with their solid debut album “Ritos diabólicos”. It was one of those very nice surprises, when you hear music that blows your head off and it turns out that completely unexpectedly it comes from an unknown band, a total beginner. Oniricous did that. And now the time came for their second full length release titled “La caverna de fuego” and I can sincerely say that this album is even better. Oniricous follows their recipes from the debut, but definitely matured and in every aspect their music got even more interesting. It’s like everything what I liked about “Ritos diabólicos” got doubled with “La caverna de fuego”. The riffs were already great, but on the new album there’s even more of them and the style of the band became quite original as it’s not a simple copycat of some old legendary bands. You just must admit that the way Oniricous mixes heavy, mid paced death metal with strong melodic base and spice it up with characteristic vocals (due to the use of Spanish lyrics), creating an eerie, horror aura is something extraordinary.

“La caverna de fuego” is surprisingly an easily listenable album. It’s almost catchy and memorable… at least as memorable as dark death metal album can be in its own ways. But really, many of these riffs and harmonies will stick in you. It helps that Oniricous is not a band, which would aim for something very extreme and brutality. Their death metal is about to sound aggressive, but dark and vicious in the first place. I cannot even put a comparison, which would be fair and smart and would give you an exact idea of “La caverna de fuego” music. None of these comparisons would work, because Oniricous managed to infect their music with the stench from their own crypt. These Spanish lyrics obviously do a lot of good work, because they make the vocals sound a bit different to your standard death metal growls. Then the riffs, the melodies and leads, the arrangements – Oniricous really did splendid job for “La caverna de fuego” and basically from start to finish, this album sounds just interesting. It is quite specific sounding record, but it works so damn awesome with songs like “Dentro del féretro”, “Los abismos del éter” and more.

As I said above, it’s memorable, easily listenable death metal album. All songs are pretty short, so they have this straight forward attitude, even if Oniricous music is not really fast. And I feel like it has almost a thrashing feeling sometimes, like in “La última puerta” for example. All in all, “La caverna de fuego” is a very solid and enjoyable death metal release. I am almost sure that every maniac out there, who worships old school, traditional sounding death metal will like it also… even if Oniricous doesn’t sound as raw and common as 99% of other bands around these days.

Standout tracks: “Dentro del féretro”, “Los abismos del éter”, “Sacrificio”

Final rate: 80/100