Deadmask - Under Luciferian Wings (2008, MCD)

Deadmask are like the Johnny Cash and June Carter of the Spanish underground. Stubborn and solitary in their vision of doom, the duet of Dopi and Nuria has given birth to an uncommon band in our country. Dopi is well known in the underground scene for his obstinate abuse of drums in the horror grinders Machetazo. Nevertheless, he always has enjoyed St. Vitus, The Obsessed or Trouble. Any Machetazo fan will remember their cover versions of St. Vitus and Black Sabbath, but Dopi has another not so well-known background in the doom genre. In the last eight years, he has participated in some unfinished sludge/doom projects like Abismo or Invictus. Worship The Sun had a little more luck, and they recorded an unreleased album. Also it was Wicked, a tribute-band to the Ozzy era of Black Sabbath, which gave a single concert back in 2005. In this band Dopi met Nuria Otero, a great fan of 70s dark rock, and once singer and leader of the punk rock band Electricats. Dopi and Nuria allied during 2007 to create Deadmask, a duet where she sings and where he plays drums, bass and guitar. During the recording sessions in the Treboada Studios of Paco Liaño, Dopi did an excellent job on drums but also on guitars, offering the lead guitar labours to two guest musicians: Dis from Sister Moon, and Miguel, an old folk in Wicked. In Electricats, Nuria showed she really knows how to sing and her attitude, so I hope nobody expects here an accessible band fronted by an inoffensive little princess: Deadmask are pure fervour to classical doom and dark 70s rock.

Their debut MCD, "Under Luciferian Wings", has been released by the Austrian label Psychedoomelic Records. Wrapped in a cool digipack designed by Alonso Urbanos, the record contains a total of six tracks. A third part of them are composed by Deadmask, and the remainder four are cover versions. Anyway, Deadmask has unite and impregnate all of them with a satanic aura that maintains the equilibrium among the power of the doom, the epic of heavy metal and the elegance of rock, with moments of intense nastiness. "Your Other Side" and "Damned" are two good credentials as composers, two cult songs to riff and the most desolated hard rock. "Your Other Side" is perhaps the most melodic track of the album, with powerful riffs and excellent lead guitars by Dis. "Damned", in contrast, is monolithic and gloomy, dragging and emanating a poisonous smell to 70s rotten doom. A highlight! The "You' re lost, I' m free" cover version of Pentagram sounds current and spectacular, and in "Wicked Woman", of the obscure pioneers Coven, Nuria rocks particularly hard. These four themes contain what you can expect fordoom band, but in "Under Luciferian Wings", Deadmask feature two less predictable cover versions: the punk rock "Four Grey Walls" of Abscess, that they play as a band of thugs armed with chainsaws, and the "Not Rest for the Wicked" cover of the country-punks Coffinshakers, an acoustic number that closes the record. In this, they are accompanied by the fretless bass of ex-Machetazo’ Carlos Cadaver. It is a stellar huge moment: Nuria transmit the defeated lyrics of Rob Coffinshaker, while Dopi accompanies her with a tanned with whisky and herb throat. I hope Deadmask could record a full lenght soon.