"A Traumatic Night of the Creeps" is a four-song EP released by the Mexican death metal band SUMMONING DEATH. Hailing from the sandy beaches of Cancun, this is an unlikely soundtrack to an all inclusive resort that specializes in spa treatments, massages, fancy drinks with paper umbrellas and ultra-plush bathrobes; however, this is also the same country where drug cartels will hang the naked bodies of their enemies from a highway overpass, so you need to take that into consideration. Of the four songs, two are covers from obscure Swedish death metal band TRAUMATIC and not-so-obscure Swedish death metal band EDGE OF SANITY. Coming on the heels of two full-length albums that were released in 2018 and 2020, "A Traumatic Night of the Creeps" seems to be an act of decrepit, sun-soaked love, a way of making the world aware that not only are the denizens of the northern tundra capable of laying down the blast beats, but their brethren south of the American border can riff their way through just as well.

"Night of the Creeps" starts of with some dungeon synths and a quick clip from "The Wire" before blasting off into some straight up, old school death. Vocalist Abigail Paz's gutteral growls are doubled over the warring guitars of Ricardo Gil and Sergio Alvarez.  The bass is buried low in the mix and the drums, while capable, take off with such fury and abandonment that they sometimes sound as if they'd fit in well with John Candy's polka band from "Christmas Vacation".  The song has some varied tempo changes that keep things interesting: a death squeal, some frantic blast beats and psychotic leads mixed in with a simple harmonic melody that brings things to a close. "The Morbid Act of a Sadistic Rape Incision" is a cover of a 1990 song recorded as the A-side of a single by old-school Swedish band TRAUMATIC. With a sludgy beginning that explodes into a death metal flash, there's a musical rawness to the track that would benefit from some vocal authenticity.  While Paz's growls sound as if she's vomiting half a lung, it would be great to hear it as if she was vomiting up all of them.  It's punk rock, basement death and an interesting song for the band to pick as a cover.

"Halloween 4" pays tribute to Michael Myers from one of the best horror franchises ever put on celluloid. The song cleverly inserts the melodic motif into the tune, and even starts with a John Carpenter-like intro.  While it starts off sludgy, it's not long before the double-bass drum comes in and the band blasts off into a blood-splattered fury.  But, really, the most interesting part of the song is an inexplicable breakdown that comes about halfway in: the bass suddenly jumps forward into a galloping, funky groove and the guitars play a clean, simple melody over a jazzy drum beat.  Of course, this is fucking death metal so you know that's not going to last and the band inevitably gets back to stabbing the metallic corpse. Final song "Darkday" is from the 1993 EDGE OF SANITY album "Spectral Sorrow." It's a pretty on-the-nose cover, but would benefit from a bit more creativity in the production, particularly with the drums. There's a nice breakdown with some harmonized guitars that sounds like a ten second ACCEPT imitation before someone screams "IT'S TOO SLOW!"

There's a lot of joy wrapped up in these twenty minutes of Swedish death metal via Mexico, and it's clear the band is having fun.  It's a riff-heavy slab of music, but SUMMONING DEATH need to find the niche that will separate them from the pack. "A Traumatic Night of the Creeps" works well as the gouged-out eyeball hors d'ouevre before the main course of fried human flesh, a metal celebration of all things horrible. Like the horror movies it clearly loves, the band does a good job of following the format; but if it hopes to make the breakthrough into "Halloween"-like infamy, they'll need to come up with some more novel ideas of musical dismemberment and torture.