WHITE STONES: Kuarahy (DEATH METAL): review / opinion to read on Music Waves

Martin Mendez has been Opeth's bassist since the recording of "My Arms, Your Hearse". He has therefore experienced all the musical periods of the band and he knows very well how many fans are nostalgic for the time when the Swedes forever left their mark on progressive death metal. So is it by opportunism or by simple nostalgia that he founded White Stones? Is it to give the fans what they've been asking for for ten years and that Mikael Akerfeldt stubbornly refuses? No one knows, and it's pointless to put the Uruguayan on trial for his intentions. But it must be said that this new project refers to Opeth's pre-"Legacy" period in many ways, even if Martin Mendez had the intelligence to link White Stones to his own history by naming it after the neighbourhood where he grew up in Montevideo.

Anyway, "Kuarahy" is an old-fashioned death metal album, with groovy riffs, frequent tempo changes, an omnipresent growl vocals and musical structures often borrowed, as it should be, from Opeth ('Kuarahy', 'Worms'). But while the death metal of the Swedish geniuses was able to pierce us through with its emotional power, White Stones' leaves us speechless and rather dubious. Simply because Martin Mendez doesn't have the songwriting talent of Mikael Akerfeldt.

Certainly, the album holds its own. The execution is flawless, Mendez's bass lines are brilliant, the guitar solos by Fredrik Akesson, also a prominent member of Opeth, are as inspired as ever. But the majority of "Kuarahy"'s compositions are boring. This is due to overly repetitive riffs ('Drowned In Time', 'Guyra') and a cruel lack of power ('Infected Soul'). And the flaw is here. Because to enhance Martin Mendez's bass, White Stones chose to considerably limit the saturation of the guitars, so that the sound of "Kuarahy" is often much closer to that of "Sorceress" than to that of "Blackwater Park" ('The One').

So "Kuarahy" is a wobbly and ultimately rather uninspired album. But that doesn't mean that you have to sulk about it. But it should be taken for what it is, a death metal album without much personality, and not for what it would like to be, an album for nostalgics of the first Opeth period. Because from that point of view, it's a failure. - Official website

WHITE STONES

KUARAHY

NUCLEAR BLAST

DEATH METAL