Mondo Podre - 2022 - Necronomia de Subexistencia

(19:56; Mondo Podre)

Track list:
1. Market Panopticon 0:33
2. Esperando demasiado tiempo para acabar igualmente en el infierno 1:14
3. O cadáver negro do sol 1:38
4. Devorados polo kippel 0:56
5. El arte de lo inútil 0:47
6. La Guardia de la Muerte 2:01
7. Baixo a nube de Hiroshima 1:50
8. Dona tus riñones al banco 1:17
9. Je suis la merde 0:27
10. Circo geriátrico 2:46
11. Escravo da mediocridade 1:00
12. Mileurista grindset 0:43
13. Estado de excepcion no declarado 1:20
14. Oio voces que queren queimarme 3:24

Line-up:
Espasa - bass
Damian - drums
Newcorpse - vocals
Gon - guitars
Miguel - guitars


Spanish band Mondo Podre have been around for a handful of years or thereabouts from what I can see, with various promos, EPs and split releases to their name in earlier years. In the spring of 2022 they released their debut album "Necronomia de Subexistencia" which was self released by the band as a digital album, with CD versions and vinyl editions released through a few different labels.

This band and this album is a perfect case and a good example of why album ratings alone aren't all that informative when scanning a review. The rating is, after all, a commentary that says something about the opinion of the writer reflecting the writer's subjective enjoyment (or lack thereof) of an album, but doesn't really say all that much about the music itself.

I'm stating this due to this being an album that did fall outside of my own taste in music, with a rating that reflects just that. What I can hear is a band that are skilled at what they do and execute what they planned to do very much in line with what I suspect they had intended.

The music itself is built upon a hardcore framework, with riffs, rhythms and song structures all pointing back to hardcore as a vital ingredient and foundation for the music explored here. Up to and including certain aspects of the vocals. Hence the songs come across as both primal and primitive in nature, aspects that are emphasized by the mix and production, even if there are plenty of details throughout that points towards proficient musicians being needed to execute all the details.

The metal aspects in the music are of the brutal variety, with grindcore being the subset of extreme metal explored here. In this case with two sets of vocals, one being twisted higher pitched shrieks and the other darker, guttural growls, with blazing riff patterns and intense hammering rhythms applied to the hardcore foundation. The latter element retain more of the hardcore aesthetic in terms of sound at least, although I suspect there are technical bits in both the bass and drum department that are more technically demanding, while the guitars bring in a whole host of scale movements and groove patterns pulled in from the metal side of the spectrum. Some breakdowns to slower and sludgier landscapes is a feature too, at least in the longer songs. Long in this specific context being songs that stretch beyond the 2 minute mark.

This is a primal production with brutal music explored in a manner that makes the music sound a lot more primitive than what is actually the case. I do regard the album as such as much more of a niche production, one that will appeal to those who enjoy music described within a grindcore context and probably also to many of those who tend to enjoy bands that mix and blend elements from hardcore with the more extreme aspects of extreme metal, but for my sake at least I can't see that this production will appeal too much beyond this niche audience. Hence an album that the audience described might want to inspect further, but also one that people outside of that crowd should approach with a bit of caution. Not my cup of tea, and a case of music that just didn't appeal to me personally.

Olav M. Björnsen, August 2022

Links:
https://www.facebook.com/mondopodregrind