#Svdestada Candela

Band: Svdestada
Title: Candela
Labels: (all quoted at the end of the article)
Release date:  5 January 2024
Country: Spain
Format reviewed: High-quality Digital Recording 

Svdestada is a band from Spain, they label themselves as a Blackened Crust band and believe me: what you’ll get from this album is a speedy, frantic, relentless, high voltage discharge running through your whole body from start to finish. Is this enough for you?

Well, I guess you like this kind of stuff, ‘cause you’re in for a great ride from the first second you start listening to “Candela”. The opener track, “Nudo”, hugs you, squeezes you and throws you on a path of no return of the purest Black n’ Crust sound. It’s fast, direct, less than two and a half minutes of full speed drums, cold guitar sound and good bass plucking, well audible. The torn voice full of pain enters your ears full of messages that hurt, pure resentment and agony…

Svdestada vocalist sing in Spanish, it’s good listening to a band using their mother tongue. And even if you don’t understand this language, it’s the same as if you don’t understand Swedish, German or Finnish, I mean: you’ll have an idea of the message just by listening to the music and the aggression in the voice. You can use a translator for a complete experience, I usually do that when I listen to bands singing in other languages… 

I want to leave here a translated fragment from their song “Cierzo” (for you to know, this is the name of a wind from the north, in Spanish):

“You have no fucking idea what this is, the chorus of wolves that I have inside here, I throw them carrion and they come running, here they always find hell open, the throat broken from screaming at the sky; come down from the clouds, I’ll show you my kingdom, it is a tyranny, here the north wind rules, the dry rage of fear and jealousy.” Wow. This is pure dark and agonic poetry.

I love the voice, it’s like it spits out harsh and hurtful messages in your face while you can’t even move or barely blink. A demons’ congregation unleashing their burning fury. All in just one person. 

The drums make it through a great festival of D-Beat patterns, along with guitars playing cold riffs (and even with a big atmospheric load, like in “Cierzo”). And if this wasn’t enough, lyrics are brutally raw; personal stories of struggles, inner demons, oppressive pain, endless cold inside… Damn, these are really touching issues. 

Besides the vocals, it’s just like guitars are speaking too. The way they tangle together with the bass, forming a sound tide that invades you, devours you, consumes you like fire… because these songs are made of fire, of rage, of pain. 

The fast-paced rhythms make you can’t stop moving, and the messages are so hurtful but at the same time so healing… I love this duality. I allow these songs to pierce my heart like a dagger of ice, and at the same time they heal some inner wounds. This is the best thing that music can do to me.

The closing theme, “Candela”, is the longest track, almost 12 minutes. And it’s an impressive display of darkness, anguish, despair… Drums do a particularly brutal work in this one. At times the rhythm is frantic, at times more mid-paced, but always with plenty of energy. Guitars are playing piercing and infectious riffs right from the start in the purest Atmospheric Black Metal style, leading the listener to the darkest and wildest ride. I love the short part in the middle that’s quieter, almost a break from all that anguish. 

And the last three minutes are simply cathartic. Blast beats and a lot of smashed cymbals, a repetitive cold as ice riff, and… is there a hurdy gurdy at the final minute? The way this song ends is so beautiful… 

Still in awe after listening to “Candela” on repeat, it’s been like an experience of renewal, I’m loving it… My rating? 9,5/10  Sílvia 

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Labels
Shove Records
Long Legs Long Arms Records
Pundonor Records
Fireflies Fall
Muerte Matar Records
Hecatombe Records
Gato Encerrado Records
Frontal Distribución
Hombre Montaña
Quebranta Records
Four Skulls
Sounds Like Sunday Records

9,5/10 Epic Storm
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