{"id":21291,"date":"2014-07-18T00:00:46","date_gmt":"2014-07-18T00:00:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/?p=21291"},"modified":"2014-08-24T13:35:14","modified_gmt":"2014-08-24T13:35:14","slug":"album-review-zarpa-bestias-del-poder","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/album-review-zarpa-bestias-del-poder\/","title":{"rendered":"ZARPA – Bestias Del Poder (2014) | Album \/ EP Reviews @ Metal Forces Magazine"},"content":{"rendered":"

ZARPA
Bestias Del Poder<\/strong><\/span>
\n\"\"
\nPure Steel (2014)<\/span>
Rating: 8.5\/10<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

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Although the lyrics of this 15-track affair are in Spanish, the latest opus from traditional metal quartet Zarpa is a half-decent one and the sort of album some of today\u2019s young upstarts could learn a lot from. <\/p>\n

Zarpa have most certainly been around since the age of the dinosaurs or so it would seem, with Bestias Del Poder<\/em> being their latest well-stirred cauldron of dark magic to be spilled down from the magic mountain and into our homes.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s hard to believe that these guys formed at the tail-end of the 1970s as Wolframio but have survived the 80s, the turgid 90s and even the 00s releasing consistent record after consistent record. Bestias Del Poder<\/em> is the 11th full-length studio outing from this band whose line-up consists of original vocalist Vicente Feij\u00f3o, who has ploughed on tirelessly, and is accompanied by guitarist Rafael J\u00e1tiva who has been with the band since 1999. The more recent additions to the line-up are bassist Vicente Romero, who joined in 2002, and drummer Bienvenido God\u00f3y (drums), who was taken on in 2004. So, in a sense this is an extremely stable line-up and one which has been thrashing out strong metal every couple of years, with this new effort coming two years after 2012\u2019s Zarpasaurio<\/em>.<\/p>\n

In a sense, Zarpa is still a relatively obscure band for some, but proof that not all the most consistent or long-standing bands of the world are household names. And so, what is the latest chapter of Zarpa telling us? Well, if anything, it tells us that this band has no plans in giving up, so intent are they on battering us with their raging metal that just never lets up. <\/p>\n

We begin the latest experience with the thunderous \u2018Alma Inmortal\u2019, which is everything you\u2019d want from a metal tune \u2013 hard-hitting percussion, a driving guitar rumble, a bestial bass, catchy hooks and those dramatic masculine vocals of Feij\u00f3o, who is belting out the anthems as if he was a youngster back in the 80s. <\/p>\n

Indeed, there are times in a metalhead\u2019s life when you become sick of the trends and you just want to be suffocated by a pure molten metal experience, and Zarpa is the type of band you can rely on. An organ briefly introduces us to the power metal behemoth that is \u2018El Reino De La Verdad\u2019, a thrashing riff comes hurtling in on the cold steel barrage of \u2018En La Batalla\u2019, and a bass and drum glam plod brings in the forceful \u2018No Me Dejes Caer\u2019 with its hazy solo and convincing plod. Sure, it\u2019s heavy metal-by-numbers, but boy does it succeed in getting that head to bang. <\/p>\n

Forget the pretenders and just revel in the leather-clad prowess of \u2018Dama De La Osuridad\u2019 with its militant dramatics and ascending sole, and wade into the rusty waters of the hammering thrash Armageddon of the title track. This is metal how metal should be, not once plagued by contemporary design but instead fuelled by blood, sweat and creaking leather and iron. In fact, only a label called Pure Steel could put out such a fiery lump of noise where bestial vocals rise above a crescendo of wolfen-guitar howls, crashing drums and a bass forged from the fire of dragon\u2019s breath. Time to throw those horns up kiddies, and all hail the force that is Zarpa.<\/p>\n

Neil Arnold<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

ZARPABestias Del Poder Pure Steel (2014)Rating: 8.5\/10 Although the lyrics of this 15-track affair are in Spanish, the latest opus from traditional metal quartet Zarpa is a half-decent one and the sort of album some of today\u2019s young upstarts could learn a lot from. Zarpa have most certainly been around since the age of the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,1386],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21291","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-album-ep-reviews","category-zarpa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21291","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21291"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21291\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21295,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21291\/revisions\/21295"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21291"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21291"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21291"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}