LEGEN BELTZA – Dimension Of Pain

This is the debut album of this obscurely-named Spanish Thrash Metal quartet, but indeed it still looks the part; cool, 80’s style cover art, a gorgeous multi-page booklet, and professional band photography is always a nice start towards credibility. Still, the music is what really matters, and there’s clearly some very cool things going on during the almost 54-minute Dimension Of Pain album. The music is more in line with the German Thrash tradition than American, but still the band opts for quite a high level of technique with guitarists Ekaitz and Azkue pulling off some rather quick-ish riffs together with drummer Edorita. The songs are written by Ekaitz and bassist/singer Xanti, with about a 60/40 share in favor of the former. Xanti’s penned all the lyrics, though.

Song-wise, Legen Beltza (that name’s just dead cool, isn’t it?) has come up with lots of very good ideas for this album, but to some extent the really listenable songs are missing here. Especially when they go for a more traditional Heavy/Thrash Metal approach, like in “War of Wars 1” or “Meet Me In The Dark,” the result is groovy and very cool, but although the riffing if of a high standard throughout and the guys certainly know their way around their instruments, the album as a whole ends up a bit … boring?

The finishing 9-and-a-half minute epic “War of Wars 2” is a good example of this -– it’s full of good ideas, but still it’s really doesn’t provide much excitement. Perhaps the band would be better off by keeping things plain and simple — shorter tunes like the aforementioned “War … 1” and “Meet …” work very well, as does “Fucking Dawn Of The Dead” and “Satanic Neighbourhood,” and the latter HAS to be nominated for song title of the year. These tracks show the band at their most traditional, and the smell of Destruction and Kreator lays thick over the –- neighborhood? But, this is not at all a bad thing. Ekaitz also spices things up with some very good lead guitar playing -– this is one player who actually understands the importance of melody, a big plus indeed.

On the whole, though, Legen Beltza is not entirely there yet, but Dimension Of Pain still shows a band with the potential to go far, very far -– only time will tell …