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Pneuma: Anomaly

14/12/10 || Khlysty

Y’all know, there comes a time in the life of every GD staffer that he’s faced with the horror of the blank page (don’t really know ‘bout the others, I’m generalizing here, just so I can cover my ass). You listen to a record –most probably from the pile of “review those or die, you lazy fucks” CD’s that da Lord always has in store for us. What you hear is not exactly shitty; neither is it any good, really. Just run of the mill mediocre. So, what the fuck can you write about it? How can you describe the merits or the problems of something that doesn’t interests you one little bit? Thus, the above-mentioned blank page and the horror it ensues.

That’s the case with Pneuma, at least for me. This four-piece hails from San Jose, Costa Rica and supposedly plays progressive metal. As far as Metal Archives is concerned, their top moment up today was an opening slot with Metallica, when the latter played Costa Rica. Pneuma exists in one form or another since 2002 and they have two records under their belt, “Anomaly” being their most recent. From what I gather, Pneuma remains unsigned –I suppose that it’s hard for a Costa Rica “prog metal” band to find a native label, much less an international one…- and “Anomaly” is self-released as was their former record. But, hey, is it any good?

Well, not exactly. Of course, the band members are all exceptional musicians and the music contained in “Anomaly” sounds okay to me. Instead of going for, say, Dream Theater’s jazzy wank-fests, the band composed pretty straight-forward metal songs, peppered here and there with techie breaks and passages, guitar heroics (the leads are dexterous and interesting), bassy interludes and other shit that might give credence to the “prog” characterization. Also, the band has quite an abundance of riffs to go and tries to balance technicality with a serious dose of groove and a less serious one of brutality. As a whole, let me tell you that if you like proggy-techie metal, but easily digestible, “Anomaly” might be pig-heaven for you.

Unfortunately, it’s not for me. No, siree; instead, I find the triggered drums quite annoying and the vocals –constituting of a grating scream-screech, interspersed with wimpy cleans- totally awful. But, see, these are only details. Taken as a whole, “Anomaly” is a record that, in my mind, is too mediocre to be considered as something more than, y’know, “one of them records from whazzizname”. Yeah, I know that it’s hard to be a metal band, much more a prog metal band, from Costa Rica. Tough. Wormrot is a fucking grind band from Indonesia or Melanesia or whatever other country at the butt-end of the world and they made the metaldom to buzz with interest. Why? ‘Cause they made interesting music. On the other hand, Pneuma’s music is definitely NOT interesting. It’s nicely played, nicely composed, nicely produced –but interesting? Nah, not really.

To cap things off, the songs are longer than they should be, the production is pretty clear and pretty suited for the kind of music played here. There are quite a few Metallica-isms and Tool-isms and a few Dream Theater-isms to be found in the songs and generally the flow of the record is okay. Bottom line? Sorry, guys, but, while there might be an audience for the kind of music that you play, from me you get no cookie.

Information
Released: 2010
Label: self-released
Website: http://pneumametal.com
Band
Antonio Masis: vocals, bass
Jose Sibaja: guitar
Daniel Vega: guitar
Norman Mena: drums

Tracklist
01. Dethroned
02. Crazed apocalyptic wave
03. Screaming at the gates
04. 90 millions seconds
05. Time
06. Find myself again Part 1
07. Find myself again Part 2
08. Control

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