Impureza – Alcázares
Release Date: 11th July 2025
Label: Season of Mist
Bandcamp
Genre: Hispanic Extreme Metal, Brutal Flamenco Death Metal.
FFO: Nile, Hate Eternal, Behemoth, Fleshgod Apocalypse, First Fragment, Morbid Angel, Gipsy Kings.
Review By: Malte Brigge
Twenty years ago, the founders of Impureza soldered flamenco onto the barbaric template of death metal to see what would happen. Their 2017 album La Caída de Tonatiuh—only their second full-length—bridged brutal but well-grooved ragers with acoustic Andalusian instrumentals as a medium for exploring the Spanish conquest of the Americas. The concept was cohesive, but they presented the two musical styles less as fusion and more as an experiment in balance and counterpoint. What I hoped for on receiving their third outing, Alcázares, was to hear more integration of their stylistic abilities through the songs rather than around them.
Sweeping orchestration accompanying acoustic guitars turns intro Verdiales into the opening scene of an epic, generation-spanning film with a cast of thousands—which is what Alcázares is, starting with the Muslim conquest of the Iberian Peninsula and ending, unexpectedly, 700 years later with an interrogation of Torquemada (you never expect the Spanish Inquisition). The mood is established, the landscape is painted; now you are set for Bajo las Tizonas de Toledo to rip into you. You might notice Lionel Cano Muñoz’s stunning guitar tone, but you will assuredly notice his unusual approach to death metal, from the galloping Spanish rhythms to the sawing tremolo riffs. Bands like Nile (sheer ferocity) and First Fragment (playful technicality) come to mind, alongside maestros like Paco de Lucia, Manitas de Plata and Francisco Tárrega for melodic arrangement. There is no flash for flash’s sake; whether it’s twisting motifs, percussive grooves or Latin flames lighting up the fretboard, every note feels exactly right; nothing is excess. The three guitar-driven instrumentals are masterclasses of compositional mood. They aren’t interludes but plot points and character descriptors.
Impureza weave acoustic instrumentation throughout the songs, creating sudden but fluid tonal and stylistic shifts that often allow other instruments, especially the vocals, to vary in register and tone (La Orden del Yelmo Negro showcases this well). Esteban Martin has a huge roar that can be at times spitfire and other times brutal, but it’s his harmonized cleans on songs like Castigos Eclesiásticos that make you think Impureza hired a veranda full of vocalistas wearing bolo ties. Channeling Camarón de la Isla, Eliades Ochoa, Duquende and the way Buena Vista Social Club create that sound, he summons a sense of duende and Andalusian deep song you won’t find anywhere else in metal or most music. He recalls many voices, but the sound is incomparably his own. These aren’t limited tricks; rather, they are features that tie the sonicscape firmly to the thematic elements. The fact that the last notes of the album are clean vocals calling out ‘Torquemada!’ speaks to the power his voice has.
Pinning down Alcázares is like trying to memorize the shape of water in a rapidly flowing river. Bajo las Tizonas de Toledo establishes this fluidity, blending and blurring sounds, styles and rhythms like various currents carving dry earth. Disparate elements merge in surprising ways, creating rapids where you can’t tell what’s what that then pour into languid pools that breathe but do not stop. Guilhelm Auge’s drumming creates deep pockets, precise and powerful without being obliterative, particularly highlighted on Covadonga and Pestilencia. A few bass leads glimmer playfully but purposefully, notably in Castigos Eclesiásticos and Reconquistar Al-Ándalus. I wish Florian Saillard’s fretless work was more audible throughout the album, because it’s jaw-dropping. The accompanying (but too infrequent) orchestration, courtesy of Louis Viallet, sometimes falls too far back in the mix, which is a pity because it lends emotional depth to the already multifoliate compositions.
There’s a lot happening on this album. The way the vocals and guitars trade off and support each other; the way acoustic and electric guitars duel; how the clean hacienda vocals twine with the Amorphis-like roars; moments of pure blast-beat death metal, the excellent see-saw riffs on Santa Inquisición (an absolute banger of a finale) and the crushing El Ejército de los Fallecidos de Alarcos punctuate with unlayered simplicity each cinematic mini-epic—there is no dull moment on this album. Nearly a dozen attentive listens in, and I’m still surprised. It sounds great, but I would love the production to open up, just as I would like to hear Latin rhythms and modes channeled more often through the death metal tones (Covadonga glimpses this, and Murallas, wonderful as it is, would sound amazing electrified). These are nitpicks, not problems. On Alcázares, Impureza have crafted a compelling, unique tour de force that intersects “Castilian chants and Andalusian folk traditions” with beautiful brutality.
(4 / 5)
