Hailing from Chile before eventually relocating twice in Europe, Undercroft have had a surprisingly long career without much fanfare over the years. While their style hasn’t changed too much over within their long career, Twisted Souls remains the best representation of their combination of rhythmic syncopated riffs and short bursts of melody.
For a 90s album recorded in Latin America, the production is astounding. Impactful and clear drums even though the bass drum clicks too much. Massive guitars that are fully decipherable without sounding sterile and leave enough room for the deep guttural vocals to glide on top. While the bass isn’t particularly audible, it fills the low end without interfering with either the drums or the guitars. From an aesthetic point of view, this is an extremely enjoyable album to listen to. The lead guitar tone during the “Lord of Terror” solo is a particular highlight as the excellent rhythm work is still given the same amount of importance within the mix while still highlighting the solo.
While the riffs here are for the most part palm muted, they are constantly driving forwards and never slow down into breakdowns or become overly reliant on their rhythmic nature. The band will chain these riffs in quick succession and then from there the melodies will suddenly explode from these chugs, “Beheading False Prophets” being the most obvious example of this at the halfway mark of the song. While the melodies themselves aren’t particularly satisfying or powerful in isolation as similar bands have used the same kind of tools for stronger effect, the contrast in pitch as well as their consonant nature in opposition to the cold and chromatic chugs make them enjoyable to listen to in context. The band display technical proficiency as well as some hyperactive drumming that allows them to colour these parts with all sorts of flourishes and also gives them a wide range of building blocks to create quite a lot of diversity within the riffs heard on this album.
Outside of the closer “Sodom and Gomorrah”, the song arrangements don’t really make sense and are merely a collection of very solid parts that don’t amount to more despite each song having it’s own unique identity within the album. Despite its faults, Twisted Souls remains one of the greatest boneheaded death metal albums due to its diversity, execution and melange of memorable melodies and crushing rhythms and a continuous sense of momentum. A highly recommended album that should be heard at least once.
