Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
Purchasable with gift card
€7EUR or more
Record/Vinyl + Digital Album
"Barely Alive" limited edition live album:
-housed sturdy 300gsm vinyl sleeve
-full color printed inner-sleeve
-Grey vinyl 100 copies
THIS IS A PRE-ORDER, SHIPPING ORDERS AROUND THE 28TH OF JUNE!
Band: Mephistofeles
Title: Barely Alive
Specification: Live at El Emergente, Club in Almagro, recorded October 16th 2021. Tracklisting:
Side A
1.Buried in Worms
2.The Meaning of all Evil
3.Frustrated
4.Die in Vain
Side B
5.Last Will
6.Damnation or Salvation
7.Lucky Spin
8.Profanation
Includes unlimited streaming of Barely Alive!
via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
...more
shipping out on or around June 28, 2024
Purchasable with gift card
€21.99EURor more
Record/Vinyl + Digital Album
"Barely Alive" limited edition live album:
-housed sturdy 300gsm vinyl sleeve
-full color printed inner-sleeve
-Yellow vinyl 100 copies
THIS IS A PRE-ORDER, SHIPPING ORDERS AROUND THE 28TH OF JUNE!
Band: Mephistofeles
Title: Barely Alive
Specification: Live at El Emergente, Club in Almagro, recorded October 16th 2021. Tracklisting:
Side A
1.Buried in Worms
2.The Meaning of all Evil
3.Frustrated
4.Die in Vain
Side B
5.Last Will
6.Damnation or Salvation
7.Lucky Spin
8.Profanation
Includes unlimited streaming of Barely Alive!
via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
...more
shipping out on or around June 28, 2024
Purchasable with gift card
€21.99EURor more
Record/Vinyl + Digital Album
"Barely Alive" limited edition live album:
-housed sturdy 300gsm vinyl sleeve
-full color printed inner-sleeve
-black vinyl 200 copies
THIS IS A PRE-ORDER, SHIPPING ORDERS AROUND THE 28TH OF JUNE!
Includes unlimited streaming of Barely Alive!
via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
Written by: Gabriel Ravera
This gig was completely bizarre and disastrous. First of all we arrived late to the sound checking, so we did NOT checked any sound at all. Then we bought some “molly” from a random girl that appeared in the venue. We were told not to mix that molly with anything else so we could enjoy the best out of it. After that we started snorting coke almost immediately with our lawyer. Minutes before jumping on stage, Ivan and Ismael took molly, but not me.
At one point, in the middle of the set, Ivan stopped playing during the solo of “Die In Vain” and got off stage running towards the dressing room’s bathroom just to get to snort some more coke out of our lawyer’s dirty credit card. He then returned to the drums without even noticing that the song did not finish. That’s why that song lacks from the guitar solo part…
After playing we felt like shit. Ismael eyes looked like fried eggs and he later re-called to have been “snowblind”. He was paranoid as well about angry mobs coming to the venue in order to boicot our show. That coked-induced paranoia locked us in an unfriendly mood…
Ivan was sweating nervs as he never experienced some trip like that. He ran into the bathroom again and gifted the molly he had left to a nearby stranger. He told him “Be careful with that shit, I’m too high”. The stranger from some reason convinced him that snorting MORE coke was going to keep him down to earth from the trip. So he just snorted some more from a stranger and that just made things even worse for him.
A couple of guys came by me to say hi and I could not formulate any type of answers to them. I just kept staring at them while smiling and not thinking of anything. It was hard and painful to think, honestly. My brain was baked.
We were too high on that shit man, we were muted. Ivan at some point just grasped the words: “Man, I don’t feel Ok”, and I barely answered him “alright, just tell me if you don’t feel good”. We were a true tribute to Ozzy Osbourne, we reached a point where each one of us were erratically talking with complete confidence about different topics that had little-to-nothing to do with what we really tried to communicate. We kept forgetting about what we said seconds ago because of the lack of concentration. It was very confusing.
Overall the gig was good, better than what we thought after getting off stage.
We were told that the show was going to be recorded on multitrack and we could get those for a certain amount of money for the sound engineer… we did payed him, but the guy seemed to rip us off as he charged for our set more than the rest of the bands. I still don’t know why.
In the end after the venue closed and was time for the bands to get their share from the tickets sold that day (That was a pretty good amount of money) we noticed that the producer of the event just escaped from the place with all the cash. None money left for the bands. The guy just disappeared and that was it. He mind-freaked us. The only earning we had from that day was selling some vinyl records out from the merch table. (You, guy who bought all the records at once, I hope you read this someway because you were the hero that day my man…)
Written by Billy Goate:
This live album, despite some day-of complications, is nonetheless exciting as it witnesses some of the band’s newest material. Recorded on October 16th, 2021 at El Emergente Club in Almagro, the performance allows us to spy out what the band has been cooking up during the pandemic. Following lockdown restrictions and Delta’s brutal wave, this show must have seemed like a huge release for fans. The band got blasted out of their everloving minds for this show, but their chemistry as performers really comes through and you can scarcely tell otherwise.
Mephistofeles goes for a rawer, grungier sound that hearkens back to Soundgarden’s Ultramega OK with doomy dissonance reminiscent of early Sleep. There are moments when frontman Gabriel Ravera seems to be channeling both his inner Robert Plant on vocals and his inner Jimmy Page on guitar.
“Buried in Worms” comes out stomping, and one can almost picture the worms joyfully slopping about as the bass and guitar double-up for the opening salvo. Ismael Dimenza is a joy to listen to on “The Meaning of all Evil,” resolutely disciplined and full of heart. “Frustrated” is aptly named for the ultra-fuzzy interplay of bass and drums, then Gabriel Ravera busts loose on guitar, dotting the landscape here and there with screeching Gojira-esqe licks. “Die In Vain” is a sick instrumental dirge with a violent heartbeat. There could always be words, of course, but without them our imaginations are summoned to match emotions to mood. And the mood here is very serious and dire, calling to mind the steely atmospheric vibes of Black Cobra and Weird Tales.
The riffage on “Last Will” is unrelenting, it just keeps coming and coming for you -- as the date of one’s death surely will. As the song progresses, the low really starts to rumble. Ravera’s sounds like the living dead on “Damnation or Salvation” and I couldn’t help but reference Chris Cornell’s early records for comparison. The vocal tone is well suited for the obsessive-compulsive picking and plucking that goes on here. The architecture on this song is huge and I’m eager to hear how it bears out on the forthcoming Violent Theatre.
“Lucky Spin” marks out a clear line of stylistic lineage, from Black Sabbath to Sleep to Mephistofeles. Using traditional doom form, the band commands sweeping bass slides and buzzing guitar leads. The solo moments are celebratory, like a gambler’s high. Just one more lucky spin and the jackpot is mine….
One can imagine the band exhausted, sweaty, and spaced out by “Profanation,” but their weary perseverance makes the song work. And there’s no slacking on that guitar solo, hot damn.
credits
released November 18, 2023
Band: Mephistofeles
Title: Barely Alive
Specification: Live at El Emergente, Club in Almagro, recorded October 16th 2021.
Tracklisting:
Side A
1.Buried in Worms
2.The Meaning of all Evil
3.Frustrated
4.Die in Vain
Side B
5.Last Will
6.Damnation or Salvation
7.Lucky Spin
8.Profanation
Color Trails is on my headphones, the eerie, lonesome guitar floating above the deep drone of the bass, the synthesizer giving voice to a counter-melody. Writing this has re-written history for me. My "Mount Rushmore" of guitarists is being re-arranged. My mind has been altered, my perception sharpened. My entire sense of the history of the heavy underground has undergone a substantial revision. Scott Spiers
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