Theoretically, "post-metal" is played by freethinkers from the extreme metal world, weary of working inside of genres and fired up to move beyond them. In practice, what you usually get is doom, plus a vague sort of arty eclecticism, whether that be Neurosis' occasional flash of sickly prettiness (as though the white-noise distortion had suddenly parted to reveal Dirty Three), the grandiose shoegaze-metal of Boris and Mono, or the extended programmatic music of Isis and Pelican. Spain's Orthodox are a relatively new face, and if anything they display their eclecticism even more prominently than their fellow travelers -- in one interview they cite Sleep, Black Flag, Mayhem, Ornette Coleman, Juan Peña, and even Bartòk and Ligeti as artists favored by the band.
You can hear shades of Coleman in "Con Sangre de Quien te Ofenda," and there might be a bit of Peña floating around in the title track. The discordant piano-bashing on "Puerta Osario" does sound affected by, if not descended from, Bartòk and other modernists. However, Orthodox don't always give the impression of having mastery over these diverse elements, and there are stretches of Amanecer en Puerta Oscura that sound as though the band are at a loss as to where to go with their ideas.
Nevertheless, the odd metal moment still makes the meandering worth it, since Orthodox lay down riffs with authority and undeniable power. They grasp every nuance of the form they're working with, locking together for ascending half-steps and descending tritones, the singer shouting into a flanger pedal. "Pt. II Apogeum" even concludes with a furious shakedown and fiery guitar solo Matt Pike might have been proud to lay claim to. If Orthodox can manage to refine their approach to the artier stuff alongside it, they will be quite a thing to reckon with.
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