POSTUMO LUMBRE is a Blackened Death Metal band from Chile.  "Empirikkal," is their second full length album but they also have three EPs and a demo under their belt.   "Empirikkal," is an album that has a lot of the musical leanings of Black Metal but the hefty, meaty, weight of Death Metal.  As such, we get an album with a lot of raw energy but wrapped up in a package of brutal grooves and standout bass.  Seriously, the whole band is on point but Olethros' basslines are worth the price of admission alone.

The opening track, "Lacerad," wastes no time, the Blackened riffs going for the throat right away.  When seconds a nice groove settles in, boosted by Hermit's rapid fire drums.  I think the snare sounds a bit thin but that is more of a production issues—Hermit playing is impeccable.  Neguss, whom also plays guitar, has a really grim voice-it definitely rides the line between Black and Death.  He and fellow guitarist play very well together, trading off hard edged Blackened riffs and Death Metal groove like it is just another day for them.

Despite the dark nature of the music, they do allow some light to shine-they definitely aren't afraid to throw in small amounts of melody such as in the opening moments of the second track, "Disciplina artificio estitlista."  This track reminds me a lot of OLD MAN's CHILD, especially during the "Ill Natured Spiritual Invasion," era, they just have that similar vibe of a song that can really throw down but still have that bleeding rusty, edge that BM is so well known for

"Fascinacion interfectuz" is one of the album's highlights for me and probably the one with the most straight forward BM sound.  However, it does inject some decent leads and even a bit of atmosphere towards the song's end. Speaking of endings, quite a few of the songs go on a bit longer than needed—losing about fifteen minutes of time off this hour long album would certainly help especially since the songs eventually do start to blend in together.  Still, the album doesn't have a bad track; you could pick any of them to play and be satisfied by what is on display.  One of the last tracks, "Manos postumas," is a really fun track because it has so many cool parts to it.  The riffs in general are a bit more complicated and interesting than the tracks before, most of which are played so tightly, my ears felt like they were going to snap under the pressure.  The ending of the song has a melodic twist that caps the whole track off nicely.

This is a solid release—I haven't reviewed much Blackened Death this year but from what I have heard, this is one of the better releases and you could do much worse than checking this one out.