Born in 2005, ESHTADUR from Colombia released this August their third LP, Mother Gray, out for Bleeding Music Records, delivering a sane dose of melodic death metal, fueled by harsh and heavy vocals and obsessive riffs. "Belong to Nowhere" opens this LP with its aggressive drum beat and riffs, leaving the almost muffled melody to stick to our ears. Uptempo "Plaguemaker" will show guitars leading the way with not so fitting solos: while Jorge vocals show good skills, with a balance between screamed and growled sections, you can sense a bit of detachment from the direction of the rest of the track. Next one, "Cornered at the Earth", is a fast paced one, with the intense growling fittingly racing around the melody, something that might remind of BLACK DAHLIA MURDER. Orchestral sections appear along the way but they are unable to fit and blend into the composition. Same elements fits better in the following slow "Desolation", true to its name in summoning visions of scorched earth, with Jorge screaming its way through a land of pain. "Time hole in Paris" winds tempo up, mixing solo guitars to drum bursts while "March of the Fallen" tries once again to mix symphonic elements to slow tempos, with mixed results: while on the beginning of the song this works quite well, along the track orchestral melody and the slow paced riffs & drums don't fit right, as forced together.

"The Day after I die" fast tempo sees ESHTADUR in a good proof of their skills, both for the drums shattering the fast sections and for the inspired vocals. "Heavens to the Ground" is quite a good twisted track, with mixed tempo sections, spoken vocals and guitar solo kept together. "Last day of the Condor" distorted vocals will make it up for the somewhat martial and comic symphonic intro. Closing this a LP, a funny cover of "Burning Heart" by SURVIVOR. This last song is actually enjoyable but shows in my view one of the greatest limits of this release: while nothing can be said about ESHTADUR about their technical skills, from guitars to vocals, all the lineup did a good job and it's clear they can do their job, it seems that all the "foreign" elements in Mother Gray, like the orchestral insert, are used to distinguish their work from their niche and their inspiration but the result is forced too much and looks unnatural in the end. If they had worked more on the songwriting and how all should fit together, I'm sure they'd have had the potential for a more memorable record.