EPOCH OF THE FIFTH SUN

Who is familiar with Senmuth won't find Tenochtitlan much different. Effectively this can be considered a Senmuth's side project with Lefthander that's often guest on Senmuth's albums and the addition of two more instrumentists and a female vocalist.

I mean familiar with the "industrial metal" side of Senmuth, because even if the ethnic influence is present in the background this is a most metal oriented album. The music is powerful with the usual heavy distorted guitar and vocals like on "Teotihuacan". A reference could be Senmuth's debut "Cognitive Discord" which was released not too far from this album.

One thing that I notice is that behind the powerful sounds and the distorted vocals sometimes growled I can clearly hear a melody based on chords, something that the Senmuth's solo things are sometimes missing.

It's clear that most of the composing comes from Senmuth. This could easily be a Senmuth's album.

As it often happens in prog the best track is the longest one: "Winds of the Sun". "Ye Cham-El A-Em-Aan" deserves a mention for its originality: it's a very dark track made of keyboards in the background and a powerful repetitive drumming which stays in place of any kind of structure or melody.

There are some ethnic instruments appearing here and there but instead of the usual Egyptian stuff, as the band's name says we are in Central America but this represents only an "accent" in this chaotic and heavy album.

A good one for techno-industrial-metal fans, more suitable for metallers.