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I am, by no means, the biggest Death Metal fan around, so forgive me if I miss some of the finer points in my review of Anlace's Transmutación. Hey, the journey needs to start somewhere. Hailing from Mexico, Anlace present a lot of what, in my opinion, are typical Death Metal elements on Transmutación like indecipherably growled vocals and warp-speed blast beats. But there are some non-traditional touches as well. Not that I would consider Transmutación to be "symphonic" in any way, but Anlace do slow things down and even go acoustic occasionally. What's more they inject some Mexican melodies and beats in these slower parts and I found that very effective at putting a unique stamp on Transmutación. Another unique touch (at least I've never seen this done before), is that there are six "properly" titled songs on Transmutación that are alternated with shorter (six seconds to two minutes) tracks with binary code for titles. I can only guess what these codes stand for.

As previously stated, this is Death Metal, no doubt about it. Normally, I don't "get" the harsher vocal styles but I found the delivery of David Saldivar quite easy to get accustomed to and that allowed me to hear the rest of the songs. As you would expect, the rest of the band is technically very proficient at their respective instruments. And again, what stood out for me were the slower passages in songs like "Nocturnal Dance of the Elements" and the shorter, binary track "00110100." The rest of the songs conform to the ultra-fast-blast-beat-tempo-with-slower-breakdowns school of Death Metal. I do find the rest of the "binary" tracks rather pointless as they are all simply a few seconds of such hyper-speed playing, they might as well be white noise.

Overall, Transmutación is a solid effort from Anlace. I don't believe it will change anyone's opinion of Death Metal but it should please devotees of the genre.