SubQuimera — Vol 1 Review

A Descent Through Five Hymns

The journey through the EP is structured as a psychological descent that feels as though the hymns are divided into five movements — each exploring a different facet of existentialism, death, mortality, and psychological decay.

• Devour (The opening Hymn) — the release opens with a suffocating baptism in auditory aggression and evokes a visceral sense of consumption, predation, and annihilation. The hymn is smothered in a deliberately dirty, degraded atmosphere where thick layers of sludge metal collide with an unsettling psychological undertow.
• Hurry! Hurry! Hurry! (The Second hymn) — driven by a frantic yet hypnotic momentum, this instrumental piece captures the feeling of a panic attack set to a sluggish, down-tuned rhythm — combining agitation with an undeniably infectious, subterranean groove.
• Mystery Tunings (The Third hymn) — shifting away from straightforward heaviness, the third hymn ventures into strange, uncharted territory. It is a deeply experimental and hypnotic instrumental piece that leans heavily into textural unease.
• Painted in Death (The Fourth hymn) — the hymn surges forward with renewed venom, yet it refuses to abandon the overarching mood. Instead, it pairs its renewed hostility with a vast, bleak atmospheric composition, creating a landscape that feels both furiously alive and utterly desolate.
• Pipebomb Daydream (The Closing Hymn) — clocking in at nearly six minutes, it stands as the release’s longest composition. Paradoxically and strangely, it anchors the entire EP as its true emotional and sonic centrepiece — a sprawling haunting monument that leaves the listener suspended in the wreckage of the journey.

Devilmanship Beneath the Crushing Weight

At the sonic centre of the band stands guitarist and vocalist Tavico Leite, whose approach to tone favours a crushing, high-end definition — thick, low-mid saturation — a heavy, amber-toned rumble that envelops the listener like a physical pressure front.

His riffcraft is devilishly constructed around hypnotic repetition and immense physical weight, leaning heavily into relentless, palm-muted chugging rhythms interspersed with abrasive, dissonant chord voicings that deliberately evoke a creeping sense of unease and psychological dread.

Leite’svocals distance themselves from the standard barking cadence of sludge, opting instead for a blackened, hoarse, and thoroughly tortured shriek, a delivery that sounds less like performance and more like a visceral exhalation of agony, cutting through the dense wall of guitar distortion with a haunting, demonic resonance.

Beneath this towering wall of noise lies the anchor provided by bassist João Lucas Proença. Proença’s tone possesses a subterranean weight that acts as the essential gravitational pull for the entire ensemble.

Driving the kinetic energy of these bleak hymns is drummer Iagê Donato, whose performance demonstrates devilish skill in tension and controlled aggression — he does not just keep time; he dictates the atmospheric pressure of the music through punishing, heavy drum patterns, sudden and disorienting tempo changes, and a strategic, thunderous deployment of tom fills that expertly telegraph and reinforce every shifting riff and structural transition.

The Final Echoes of DIY Desolation

Vol. 1 is an evocative, dirty and experimental fruit of art that is measured not by speed or technical extravagance, but by the density of its atmosphere and experimentation, the authority of its riffs, drum work, tortuous vocals, and the suffocating weight of the music.

Furthermore, there is an unmistakable warmth to the production despite the cold instrumentation — a proud, raw beating heart of DIY authenticity that strips away modern over-polish in favour of genuine emotion, inviting the listener into a deeply personal space that lingers long after the final notes fade.