Reencarnacion (Col) - 1988 - 888 Metal

Reencarnacion are a band from Columbia who have been around since 1986 and, despite some inevitable line up changes and a brief hiatus, are still together. 888 Metal is their first LP that has gained a massive cult following and has been reissued 3 different times, the last being by the almighty Nuclear War Now! Productions (as seen in the picture I took).

At the time of these recordings, Reencarnacion played a very raw form of black/thrash, but had some additional weird and unique aspects to their music as well. A lot of the music on 888 Metal is very fast, and the riffing is overall pretty simplistic, but the way they execute it with their unorthodox song structures accompanied by the occasional bursting out of the black/thrash madness with some all out bizarreness. They have some mid paced sections, and they do change the tempo up quite a bit, but the slowed down sections are still equally as aggressive as the rapid ones. There are certain parts that are just plain weird, which is one of the things that makes this album so atypical, and is one of my favorite things about this album. One song in particular where you will find a good example of this uncanny bizarreness is the last song, "Reencarnacion (II parte)", where they throw in some dissonant violin, acoustic guitar and strange vocal segments, all interwoven into their signature off kilter song structures.

This album took a couple listens to really sink in and grow on me, but it was well worth the effort and it eventually became one of my favorite black/thrash albums of the 80s, which seems to be the case for a lot of other people. So if you don't dig this at first, try giving it a couple more shots, but I'm sure it will click right away for some of you.

Enjoy.