Spain's Imbrue gave a tough one with their debut full-length album. At first quick listens, this stuff sounded very good, but deeper acquaintance brought out some serious problems.

'Cado Datur Verbs' is very uneasy death metal. A lot of tempo changes, warped riffs and sick melodies are what Imbrue are about, bringing bands such as Cryptopsy, Malignancy ad newer Cannibal Corpse to my mind to some extenct. The songs are twisting and usually crammed with too much stuff in them and are too long. There's some great parts, but they are overshadowed by average stuff, making Imbrue's compositions stale and simply too chaotic, consisting of same and same tricks. And this happens with almost every song, I'm afraid ('Exitus' and 'Given to the Worms' show the best of Imbrue). Even though I haven't heard totally similar death metal, I can't call Imbrue unique.

The instruments are well handled, except for the drummer, who isn't too accurate at some points. This is somewhat technical for sure. The guitar offer chugging riffs and nasty semi-melodic bits to clang to. The vocalist gets a thumb up with his variety of growls (deep, angry, maniacal, bloodcurdling). The lyrics are about violence up to killing, but are badly written and far from the most brutal known to a death-head. The production is dry as a mummified corpse laying in a desert. It's chaotic as is the music in fastest times and not too powerful, e.g. drums get drowned at the fastest stuff. The bass guitar also is way too quiet in the mix.

Imbrue have good ideas, but 'Cado Datur Verbs' is overally too stale. Twisty but too crammed up songs are what's on their menu. Maybe they come up with better compositions next time around, because the band do possess some promising aspects.

Rating: 5 (out of 10) ratings explained

Reviewed by Lane
04/04/2005 14:29