Haspu

When Ordo Caper contacted me, it was the first time that I was getting in touch with a band from Costa Rica. Ordo Caper consists of two members and they were formed in 2010 while they have released one demo and one EP. I suppose that for the majority of you, as also for me too, the scene of Costa Rica is completely unknown, something that became more of a negative fact when I started to listen to the album. So when I received “Haspu”, the first EP of the band which was originally released in June of 2012 in cassette format but it was re-released in June of 2014 in cd format, I was really impatient to get to meet for the first time the scene of that country. Unfortunately my high expectations did not represent reality.

Here the listener will come across primitive, heavy and dark Death/Black into the style of the old school of the genre of the Latin American Death/Black scene. In order to become more specific, they reminded me of the first works of the Brazilian Mystifier and their barbaric, dark and rough sound. However the quality of “Haspu” is a lot lower than the mentioned before works. The riffs are heavy, dark and dirty and they are trying to deliver that dark, rotten atmosphere but other times because of the repetitive structures, other times because of the many uninspired ideas, they don’t achieve to offer what they want to the listener. The duration of the tracks, they last from four to six minutes, it is quite long and combined with the repetitive riffs, in a lot of parts they become tedious for the listener.

The instruments although they don’t have annoying mistakes or bad performance, they have nothing to draw the interest of the listener or to help the compositions evolve. The guitars are dirty and heavy and while in general their performance is at a satisfying level, there are parts that mainly because of technical weaknesses and mistakes concerning the composition, they put out some very awkward moments. The bass is not clearly audible but it fills the sound well. The vocals are heavy and dark Death Metal primitive vocals which fit to the style of the band well and their performance is good. The drums are trying to with their good performance and, in various parts, with their interesting lines to give a push to the compositions, but without making that possible. That is due to the mixture which has highlighted the guitars a lot, so much that they cover the sound of the drums in a lot of parts. The production is bass and dirty and the sound that it puts out fits to the album. The lyrics are written in English and they are contained into the cd while they speak about death and about magic.

To sum up, the few nice ideas that I came across into this album were not enough in order to draw my attention or to make me believe into the talent of Ordo Caper. I think that the band needs to work very hard and even then I’m not sure that if they will be able to offer a remarkable album. Unfortunately my first acquaintance with the scene of Costa Rica was not what I expected to be. Avoid.