HAMLET "Insomnio" (Colin Richardson SICK production)

[Djabthrash]

Hi,

anybody knows that band HAMLET from Spain ?

Got into them like 10 years ago when they released the Insomnio album, which sounded like a thrash band gone a bit nu-metal and Deftonish (which in hindsight to their discography seems to have been the case), and it sounded fresh and well-written and sickly-produced and i got hooked.

Haven't listened to them in a while but now i'm playing the Insomnio album on my monitors and fuck that albums rocks and the Colin Richardson production on this is GODLY (this is one of my favourite productions ever i think) !!! Natural, clear, powerful, agressive enough, not too polished. But yeah i know it's easier to get this kind of production when you play some kind of nu-groove-metal than say hyper fast tech death metal

Think of it as a killer dumbed-down Machine Head meets Deftones.







better sound quality and full-album streaming here : http://grooveshark.com/#/album/Insomnio/1865924

EDIT : and the vocals in Spanish are cool for a French dude like me who chose to learn German at school instead

EDIT 2 : what's great about this album is that there are plenty of parts where you can hear some instruments solo-ed/isolated (like drums alone, drums + bass, guitars only, guitar on one side, etc...)

 

[Toxic_Lord]

Im from Spain and I dont like this band... if you like true spanish thrash, we have bands like Omission, Fuck Off, etc

If you want to listen new thrash band from Spain, we have Angelus Apatrida or Agression.

http://www.myspace.com/angelusapatrida

 

[Djabthrash]

Im from Spain and I dont like this band... (...) Fuck Off

Sorry couldn't resist

On a more serious note, i've always been curious about how they were perceived in Spain (by the Spanish metalheads i mean) since they got kind of "mainstream"/dumbed-down/nu-metallish at some point...

I mean, Spanish metalheads who are into "regular" metal but also bands like Deftones, early and mid-era Machine Head and whatnots, do they think of HAMLET as a "yeah they're good" band or "meh" band ?

 

[Sweetnothing]

I'm not into them, I know them ( same city, common friends, etc) but I think many people don't "trust" this band as they have changed their style depending on the hype of the moment.

If you check, "sanatorio de muñecos" is clearly pantera, this one has that deftonish feel, and so on.
And on a funnier note, their 2 first albums, were sleazy rock and skid rock on the second one ( peligroso)

I cannot deny they've always sounded great tho, altough the drums sounded very...dunno, lifeless to me ( speaking of playing, not the sound itself)

I respect them but not my cup of tea.

 

[Toxic_Lord]

Sorry couldn't resist

On a more serious note, i've always been curious about how they were perceived in Spain (by the Spanish metalheads i mean) since they got kind of "mainstream"/dumbed-down/nu-metallish at some point...

I mean, Spanish metalheads who are into "regular" metal but also bands like Deftones, early and mid-era Machine Head and whatnots, do they think of HAMLET as a "yeah they're good" band or "meh" band ?

"Hamlet" is a great band, there are not many bands that succeed outside the country. Here in Spain, Hamlet is very recognized.

For me, is "one more band", i prefer classic heavy metal or thrash bands... matter of taste!!

 

[Djabthrash]

Thanks guys !

I'm gonna listen back to the older "thrashy/hardcorish/punkish" albums (i bought the original cds back them during a trip to Spain it's been a good 10 years since the last time i listened to them) and also check out the new ones (it seems to me they release one album every year or so ).

Funny how France and Spain are kind of the underdogs (compared to Nordic countries, UK, Germany, Poland, Greece...) in the Euro metal scene, not having that many bands that are successful outside of their home country (we had Loudblast a while ago, and now Gojira helped bringing France back on the map a little bit, but we're still not there), and we're neighbors and don't know much about each other's bands either...

 

[DanLights]

I love the song 1998, good band but I never got too much into them. Can't say I love the production on it though, horses for courses I guess. I think the problem with Hamlet in Spain is that Spain for some reasons seems to be a Heavy Metal country, everybody loves, listens to and makes Heavy Metal here. Besides the obvious underground circles on other genres, the genre that seems to dominate the metal mainstream is Heavy metal and certian subgenres closely related to it (like Thrash metal). I also support Joseba's (Sweetnothing) point about them changing styles to go with the current fashion.

And I think the reason Spanish bands don't seem to go very far internationally is because they sing in spanish, and that just doesn't help to go international. I have nothing against singing in Spanish of course, I think Heavy metal sounds great in Spanish (I think dirty vocals such as growls, shrieks etc. sound ridiculously stupid in spanish) but it obviously is a handicap when trying to cross borders

Angelus Apatrida is a great band, saw them opening for Slayer and Megadeth recently. Great musicians, good songs, but to me it sounds like it's all the same. Spanish bands want to keep playing traditional heavy metal, traditional thrash metal, they never really push the envelope and I think that also makes them stay stuck within the audience of their own country who seem to be the only ones willing to consume that after 30 years of the same metal.

 

[Djabthrash]

Well i'm not into traditional heavy metal (i don't mean thrash/death/and stuff, i mean heavy as in Iron Maiden and all the Wacken kind of bands : Saxon, Judas Priest, Hammerfall, Edguy, ...) and it seems to me it's not as popular in France as it is in Spain or Germany (see Wacken fest) so i guess that explains it in some ways...

On the other hand, in France we don't have much traditional heavy metal bands, we have more "regular" thrash/death/groove acts, and also more left-field bands like Gojira, Klone, Trepalium, Gorod, Kickback, and all those experimental black-metal bands... Only a few of those French bands get some recognition outside of France, and only a few French metal bands sing in French (it's hard to make French sound decent in metal).

But yeah if i think of Spanish metal scene i think of heavy metal with Spanish vocals, Mago De Oz, and some underground death/grind stuff like Avulsed, Wormed and so on... (and Hamlet of course ).

 

[Toxic_Lord]

Goregrind in spanish from Madrid!!! Recorded by me in my bedroom many years ago!!! It's my brother's band!!

Vomitando Bilis!!



If you want the Demo, free download here:

"Anotaciones Gastronómicas de un Antropófago Reconocido":
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=PU7G9EWN

 

[Toxic_Lord]

Well i'm not into traditional heavy metal (i don't mean thrash/death/and stuff, i mean heavy as in Iron Maiden and all the Wacken kind of bands : Saxon, Judas Priest, Hammerfall, Edguy, ...) and it seems to me it's not as popular in France as it is in Spain or Germany (see Wacken fest) so i guess that explains it in some ways...

On the other hand, in France we don't have much traditional heavy metal bands, we have more "regular" thrash/death/groove acts, and also more left-field bands like Gojira, Klone, Trepalium, Gorod, Kickback, and all those experimental black-metal bands... Only a few of those French bands get some recognition outside of France, and only a few French metal bands sing in French (it's hard to make French sound decent in metal).

But yeah if i think of Spanish metal scene i think of heavy metal with Spanish vocals, Mago De Oz, and some underground death/grind stuff like Avulsed, Wormed and so on... (and Hamlet of course ).

If you want good spanish metal, listen to