XIBALBA HAS A NEW ALBUM AND HAVE CHANGED THEIR GENRE TO GODOFEMPTINESSCORE*
In case you missed the news, XIBALBA have a new album called Hasta La Muerte (which roughly translates ‘cool, see u later bro’ in Mexican). Fans of their first album will be in for a surprise though: this isn’t the Pomona-apartment-mosh-core band you knew from Madre Mia Gracias Por Los Dias. While there are traces of the past here and there, XIBALBA has turned into full-on GODOFEMPTINESSCORE on this album. Basically, imagine if someone gave you a huge plate of carne asada and asked you write a whole album that sounds like that old Morbid Angle song and you would have this record. They even got a Dan Seagrave painting for the cover — if you didn’t know better, you could easily mistake this for some obscure item from the JL AMERICA or ROADRACER back catalog. All it needs is a sticker on the cover boasting something like ‘CO-PRODUCED BY THE FORMER BASSIST FOR BROKEN HOPE!!’ to make it 100% complete.
Fig 1, ‘God Of Emptiness’ by The Morbid Angels
Fig 2, ‘Sentenced’ from the new XIBALBA
I liek this band so I am glad that they are growing as artists and earning the adoration of fans and critics alike. For the most part, the Internet is dominated by angry, negative b***holes who go out of their way to hate on anything new, so the fact that this album has been met with nearly universal praise is very impressive and refreshing. That said, does anyone else think it’s weird to see XIBALBA getting heaped with praise from sites like Pitchfork and Brooklyn Vegan (who usually only write about independent rock or other kinds of music that are popular with people who have creative writing degrees from private schools)??
I mean it is a free country and freedom of the press is one of the very cornerstones of our society so I do think they should be allowed to write about hardcore. We should not try to censor them, because even if they are posers they are Americans as well and they have the same rights and you or me!! I just worry that they could be encouraging the wrong kind of people to get involved in the scene, and something bad will happen like the next big trend for indie-approved hardcore bands will be all about appropriating imagery from z-level generic 90s death metal and collecting BRUTALITY merch and people would have angry Tumblr debates about which band does the best HELLWITCH cover and nobody wants that :(
* note: this post is about the hardcore band from Southern California called XIBALBA, not the black metal band from Mexico called XIBALBA who have an album called ‘Poop’ (srs)
