El Muerto — Lost and Amsterdamned Review
El Muerto, a Black Death Metal solo project from the Netherlands, created by multi-instrumentalist Riccardo Botello. On 21st November 2025, Botello independently released his debut EP, Lost and Amsterdamned, which was promoted through ClawHammer PR.
El Muerto, Lost and Amsterdamned Review: This review will evaluate every aspect of the album, from its intricate musical composition to its production. Our analysis will provide valuable insights to help you determine if this album is worth adding to your collection.
The First Three Sins, The Summary
The Fourth Sin, Overall Discussion
The Opening Hymn — Enthroned in Shadows
This is no normal release. Born in crisis, Lost and Amsterdamned was conceived as a final message from an artist who had lost the will to live. Each track captures a chapter of that darkness. Yet, this record is no longer a goodbye — it proves that even in shadows, something survives.
Raw Soundscapes — Basement-Born Ferocity
As soon as the listener presses play, the opening hymn, Enthroned in the Tower of Shadows (The Witch) blasts out. It mixes fierce riffs and wild screams. Witch themes fill the air. Frosty guitar lines chill the bones. This opener locks in the mood. It pulls you into occult rites and cold rage.
The path grows darker over the remaining five hymns. Each hymn carries its own ritual weight, blending black metal and death metal ferocity with atmospheric depth: Enthroned in the Tower of Shadows (The Witch), Witchcraft and occult power, enthronement in darkness. Ghosts of Torment, personal anguish and haunting trauma. Undead sovereignty, mythic imagery of eternal decay within the third hymn, Lich King. A Song for Ran, focusing a Norse myth, invoking Ran (goddess of the sea). Blood Crypt — death, burial, and ritual sacrifice. The closing hymn, Wolves of Den Haag, urban mythos — wolves stalking The Hague, tying exile to place.
Each hymn is both personal and mythic imagery (Witches, Lich Kings, Wolves) — depression, trauma, and survival refracted through occult and ritual imagery. The EP moves from witchcraft and torment to mythic sovereignty and urban ferality, forming a ceremonial arc of descent and rebirth.
Ritualized Cry of Sound
Lost and Amsterdamned is a raw energy of old-school and modern black metal that collides with intricate riffs, and shrieking vocals. This is captured in a recording that echoes influences from Immortal’s icy atmosphere, Darkthrone’s grit, Mgła’s dense storm, and Emperor’s grand sweep.
The sound of Lost and Amsterdamned feels basement-born. Picture a wet, rotting space under a lost church. Botello went DIY. Yet, it stays clear. No mud blocks the riffs. No blur hides the screams. Raw force cuts clean.
Grit holds firm from the underground. Still, tunes peek through. They gleam in the dark.
Songcraft and Ritualized Vocals
Within the walls of Lost and Amsterdamned, the musical and instrumental composition and arrangement are tight and strong from the moment of play. All is conducted and composed by this fruit of art devilmanship, with everything forged to perfection. Song structure is beautiful-dark, timed, and composed. The vocals are harsh with scalding roars that burn like fire, yet, abrasive, guttural, and deliberately raw that bites. The delivery of vocals feels more a cry of torment than melodic singing, channelling depression and trauma into ritualized sound.
Vocals ride high in the mix, cutting through riffs like a blade, intensifying the atmosphere.
Frostbitten Strings and Relentless Percussions
Botello’s guitar freezes the air with his frostbitten dissonant riffs and grim tremolo pickings, and crushing chord progressions. The lead guitar — occasional melodic lines woven into the chaos, echoing Emperor and Opeth influences. While the tone is cold, raw, and atmospheric — balancing heaviness with melodic undertones.
Drums? Botello handles them. Programmed or played by hand, they pound.The blast beats fly fast, relentless double‑time rhythms, and galloping black metal patterns. Aggression emphasized over precision — drums feel combative, driving the chaos forward. While aggression and darkness rule, yet, dark synths add depth, creating a layered soundscape where black metal and death metal ferocity collide with atmospheric dread.
The low drone synths with eerie pads, and ambient textures woven beneath riffs. Ritualistic noises and subtle industrial hits expand the sonic palette.
One Man’s Shadow into Art
Overall, Lost and Amsterdamned is a dark, raw and powerful fruit of art release. It blends attack with gloom layers. Botello plays every note alone. Guitar, drums, voice, synths – all his. Crisis births this black metal and death metal rite. One man’s shadow turns to stark art.
Context Sin — Shadows of Crisis
Lost and Amsterdamnedis not just another extreme metal release. It emerged from Riccardo Botello’s descent into depression, trauma, and existential struggle. Conceived as a final message from an artist who had lost the will to live, each hymn carries the weight of that darkness.
Yet, the EP is no longer a farewell. It is survival refracted through ritual sound — proof that even in the shadows, something can endure. The riffs, screams, and synths are not only musical choices but scars carved into art, transforming despair into a ceremonial scripture.
Final Rite: Wolves in Exile
The album closes with the closing hymn, Wolves of Den Haag. As we conclude this review, the wolves stalk not only the streets of The Hague but the shadows of the self, sealing the EP with a vision of torment reborn as art.
The Fifth Sin, The Memorabilia
Lost and Amsterdamned is more than another black metal or death metal release — it is a dark testimony born of depression, trauma, and existential struggle. That weight makes the record heavier, every riff and scream carrying lived torment.
Yet within that heaviness, I found myself drawn to every moment of the EP. Each hymn feels like a chapter in a shadowed scripture, but the third hymn, “Lich King,” stands out as my personal favourite. There is something about its mythic sovereignty — the imagery of eternal decay, the cold grandeur of its riffs — that resonates deeper. It feels like the heart of the record, where personal anguish and occult myth fuse into a single, commanding vision.
The Sixth Sin, The Artwork
The artwork doesn’t try to be polished or commercial; instead, it feels basement-born and ritualistic — just like the music. It’s a visual scripture of Botello’s crisis turned into art.
The Seventh Sin, Disrelish
There is nothing to dislike in the musical offerings of Lost and Amsterdamned. Each hymn stands as a testament to struggle transformed into art, a ritual carved from shadows and despair. The EP is not simply listened to — it is endured, absorbed, and carried with the listener long after the final notes fade.
Thus, we conclude our review of Lost and Amsterdamned. I would like to take this opportunity to express my gratitude for your time in reading this article, and I encourage you to explore the work of El Muerto and ClawHammer PR. In doing so, you do not merely discover another release, but step into a ceremonial journey — one man’s crisis reborn as sound, one shadow turned into stark art.
End note: for me, this is not only a musical journey but a reminder of daily battles. While the record channels depression and trauma into sound, many of us face similar struggles in silence. It may not be a journey everyone can relate to musically, yet it echoes the reality of living with daily struggles — proof that even in shadows, something can endure. In the end, music itself becomes the therapeutic method.
The Hymns
01. Enthroned in the Tower of Shadows (The Witch)
02. Ghost of Torment
03. Lich King
04. A Song for Ran
05. Blood Cypt
06. Wolves of Den Haag