Originally from Ecuador but now residing in the heavenly kingdom upon earth that is Florida, the two musicians that make up the irritatingly-hard-to-remember Mathan have produced something both authentic and original. Their home town of Guayaquil is the country's main port (Google searches are topped with "is Guayaquil safe to visit?" and the answer is sadly if not surprisingly negative) near-constantly threatened with earthquakes and tsunamis and definitely not an easy place to live, even if you're not playing death metal. You can't blame Alex and Pucho for relocating, particularly because they've imbued their form of both brutal and technical death metal with plenty of tribal eerieness, coming through strongest in the intro pieces such as The Occult Side of Nature with its throat singing. Yet even when blasting, Darkroot Tzantza is something of a strange beast, having a Decapitated-esque flourish even as it lingers on guitar wails and propulsive drum beats that threaten constantly, somehow managing to feel both dense and thick and also ear-friendly in the same way that Lamb of God's heaviest moments do (Voracity).

Latinos and death metal go together like chips and salsa, so it's not really a surprise that this is an enticing listen. Of course, we've all heard metal with tribal influences from sudamericanos before, yet Mathan are very different from Sepultura. Superficially it's the difference between being on the tourist trail, with all the fake hotspots, and suddenly being threatened by someone who knows the route back to the hotel when you don't; oh, now you're going to argue about the tip?! And this sense of impending violence is kept up even with more modern and thrashier moments such as Devourment, featuring a guest spot from Rings of Saturn's Joel, groovy and beatdown-friendly, sure, but also not the opposite of what has been going on here. And that sense of violence continues throughout the album, the band rarely letting up on their tribal-inflected heaviness.

This doesn't always work, of course, Arcane Voodoo feeling like it errs on the side of grooviness over the band's actual vision at points, but then they do immediately throw in plenty of extreme metal brutality. And in moments when simply blasting along, such as Unholy Acid, Mathan still manage to make their sound feel unique, and on the likes of Breathe Among the Dead, heavy as hell. There's a grim bluntness to their sound that adds to the feeling of sonic weight, and although the band tend to barrel along rather than making their songs go in a particular direction, you don't mind. It all comes to a head on finale Cvlt of Doom, the tribal influences adding a discongruous lightness before the metallic brutality drowns all out. And the track doesn't so much progress as prolong, driving your head into the dirt again and again through sheer intensity. That's one area the band can improve upon, is the songwriting, yet already the shifts into tribal rhythms (particularly with the animal bleats!) are unnerving enough to give the band its unique atmosphere. More of a first attempt than a perfection, perhaps, but Mathan have the ingredients to make something truly special, and Darkroot Tzantza feels out-there enough to be worthy of recommendation.