Album Review: Cóndor – El Valle del Cóndor (La Caverna Records)

La Caverna Records have released the new album by Cóndor entitled El Valle del Cóndor. Doom/death with elements of classic heavy metal, Cóndor´s fourth album is a journey through key passages of Colombian history. It comes with an eight page booklet, limited to 300 hand numbered copies.

I quite like this. A really interesting mix of doom with the grace of classic metal, the opener leans more towards the latter especially as it has no vocals. However, it’s on El Paramo De Pisba that Cóndor really come to life. The same rhythmic guitar work with slow passages of heaviness exists but the vocals liven things up. Fantastically guttural, they sound like the howling of demonic forces and something you might expect to hear on a much rougher album.

El Valle del Cóndor isn’t a rough sounding album though, instead the clean production really accenting the medley of riffs and deeper thrums of bass. In fact a lot of the time it’s just an instrumental album with no vocals to be found anywhere. As good as the likes of La Cuchilla del Tambo and Cabeza de Buitre are, it does need those moment of horror to freshen things up.

Overall though Cóndor have crafted a really intriguing listen here, an album that is not one thing or another. There’s some real variety in the the tracks and the level of guitar playing is seriously high. Gudran and Awtha are both track that I would recommend you check out from the album.

Cóndor – El Valle del Cóndor Full Track Listing:

1. Obertura
2. El Paramo De Pisba
3. La Cuchilla del Tambo
4. Santa Rosa de Osos
5. Awtha
6. Gudrun
7. Cabeza de Buitre
8. Raudo es el Cauca
9. El Valle Del Condor

You can pick up the album now over on Bandcamp.