In South America, we have excellent bands coming from all the countries you can think of. Chile is a country of truly maniac fans of Metal, bearing very good festivals and shows with excellent structures. But it seems that a great part of the Chilean bands are still locked by old patterns and formulas, and this is the case of the Death Metal quartet UTTERTOMB, from Santiago. Their latest release, the EP "Necrocentrism: The Necrocentrist", shows a talented band that needs to make some improvements.

Their approach is near of the classical Death Metal from the end of the 80s and beginning of the 90s with some inserts coming from Thrash Metal. They have personality and guts to do what they want. Of course, it isn't the newest approach in the world and reminds something from Death/Black Metal gods SARCÓFAGO, but it is very good. They mix very good guttural voices with nasty and raw guitar riffs and a good and technical rhythmic work from bass guitar and drums. They can improve to make their musical work even more personal, but it is good by now.

"Necrocentrism: The Necrocentrist" weakest spot is the sound quality. It's too raw and dirty, in a way that even the ancients like POSSESSED, DEATH and MORBID ANGEL weren't on their earlier albums. The instrumental tunes suffered a lot, especially the drums. It not as worst as you can think of, but it is truly far from what the band needs and deserves.

The EP opens with the instrumental "Venomous Flesh Rain" that opens the way for the brutal and terrorizing "Ascension Ritual" with its very good contrasts between slow parts with fast ones that shows a fine work from guitars (the solos are really good), and these contrasts are presented once more on the bitter "Choking Casket". On "Swallowed by Graves", there's a violent approach on the song, remind a lot the mix between Death Metal and Grindcore that was used on the first half of the 90s, showing very good work from bass guitar and drums. Some very catchy guitar riffs permeates the slow tempos of "Necrological Fascination", where the guttural voices are really excellent. The long and bitter "The Necrocentrist" shows a good dynamic between all the instruments, along with the changes in tempos.

Just a better sound quality in the future and I hope that the band will take flight.