{"id":21585,"date":"2014-07-25T00:00:41","date_gmt":"2014-07-25T00:00:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/?p=21585"},"modified":"2014-09-18T02:00:05","modified_gmt":"2014-09-18T02:00:05","slug":"album-review-the-hole-a-monument-to-the-end-of-the-world","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/album-review-the-hole-a-monument-to-the-end-of-the-world\/","title":{"rendered":"THE HOLE – A Monument To The End Of The World (2014) | Album \/ EP Reviews @ Metal Forces Magazine"},"content":{"rendered":"

THE HOLE
A Monument To The End Of The World<\/strong><\/span>
\n\"\"
\nNecromance (2014)<\/span>
Rating: 5.5\/10<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

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The Canary Islands have never exactly been the home of thrash \/ death metal, but in 2010 the shadowy corners of this metropolis gave birth to a quartet of musicians who became known as The Hole.<\/p>\n

Eduardo Rodr\u00edguez (vocals \/ bass), Ancor Amador (lead guitar), Pablo Guerrero (guitars) and H\u00e9ctor Lorenzo (drums) is the recording line-up on this 11-track debut outing. However, Amador has since left, with Ancor Ram\u00edrez joining as his replacement.<\/p>\n

With A Monument To The End Of The World<\/em> we are treated to a tight, thrashing death metal opus delivered with passion and aggression combined. As influences go, may I suggest just a dim hint of Slayer<\/a> at its most belligerent, with a faint sprig of Sepultura, but for the most part this is a contemporary extreme metal album by design comprised of deep, groove-laden melody and an injection of Teutonic thrash. Vocally it\u2019s all spit and venom, but such is the clean cut nature of each riff, each damaging drum beat and every swirling lead, that while the opus remains accessible it\u2019s a sum of many parts at once embracing the chugging crunch of classic thrash with modern death metal dynamics. <\/p>\n

Never fully extreme because of its tendency to dabble with melody, tracks such as \u2018Dark Of My Soul\u2019 tend to become hindered rather than energised, but a deep vein of traditional metal aesthetics runs throughout and this is not an entirely bad thing, although I just feel that at times The Hole needs to make up its mind what sort of beast it wants to be. For instance, \u2018Apocalyptic Collapse\u2019 is an all-out death metal feast for the ears bolstered by those gruff, double-tracked vocal gargles, growls and yaps, while \u2018Pro Patria Mori\u2019 is a mix of melodic metal featuring a clinical drum sound, but that marrying of extreme gruff vocals with less threatening structures doesn\u2019t always impress me. <\/p>\n

And this is where time and time again \u2013 for me anyway \u2013 so much contemporary metal fails, because this opus can become quite a cold experience at times, but one that does have its good points, especially with the thrash charge of \u2018Harsh Times\u2019 with its gang shouts, and the pulverising \u2018Hellride\u2019 which suffers from being just too long.<\/p>\n

However, having said that, this is a band that clearly is able to learn quickly and there is most definitely a fantastic maturity exhibited on the likes of \u2018Moonlight\u2019 and \u2018Misanthropic Wave\u2019, but overall it\u2019s a bit of a mixed bag that needs a good ironing out before it takes to the next path.<\/p>\n

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

THE HOLEA Monument To The End Of The World Necromance (2014)Rating: 5.5\/10 The Canary Islands have never exactly been the home of thrash \/ death metal, but in 2010 the shadowy corners of this metropolis gave birth to a quartet of musicians who became known as The Hole. Eduardo Rodr\u00edguez (vocals \/ bass), Ancor Amador […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,1421],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21585","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-album-ep-reviews","category-the-hole"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21585","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=21585"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21585\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21589,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21585\/revisions\/21589"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21585"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21585"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21585"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}