So, when I was recently contacted by Feel No Pain from Madrid, Spain about reviewing their new four track demo, First God Of The Earth, they described it as Metallica-meets-Sepultura.  But, after repeated listens, I’m afraid that’s not really the case because some of Sepultura’s classic shit borderlines on Death Metal and most of the material here is far too melodic.  Metallica-meets-Iron Maiden?  Much more like it – and there’s nothing wrong with that, by the way.

The instrumental “Mass For The Ancient One” opens up the demo.  I have to admit now that I was never really a fan of instrumentals being used to open up anything, especially a demo where you’re trying to introduce yourselves to the world.  As far as I’m concerned it’s a minute or so wasted that you cold use to let people hear the songs.  Having said that, the track itself does sound very ominous in a classical way.  I can almost envision that beast on the cover slowly arising from the waters, ready to raise hell.

The demo’s title track comes right in with nothing but double bass.  Guitarists David and Hector come right behind with very Maiden sounding harmonies.  I really like the sound of Cesar’s snare drum here!  I hope he can maintain this sound if the band every does a professional recording.  I’m almost positive the lyrics have something to do with that beast on the cover.  Maybe I was right about the intro resembling it coming out to raise hell?  It makes me think that if I were in this band, what I would have done was connect “Mass For The Ancient One” to this song as one track.  No time would be wasted then!

“Cry Of The Undead” begins as nice old-school thrasher with tightly muted fast picking that would make even Hetfield proud.  It breaks down in time for David to start singing about a zombie, stuck between wanting to die and wanting to find someone just like him, until he finds that he’s not alone at all.  You’ll definitely hear the Maiden influence as the song ends in a very “To Tame A Land” fashion, just not as epic.

“Sky Burial”, probably the best track here, comes charging right in at the gate!  This is actually a great way to close the demo up.  It’s a good mix of Maiden’s melodicism and Iced Earth’s tight arrangements.  If I were any of the members of this band I’d want to stick to this for a bit – and I haven’t been a fan of Iced Earth in years.

Feel No Pain sounds like a hungry band.  No doubt about it.  If there’s anything I’d change it’s the vocals for sure.  There’s nothing wrong with singing but I feel like these lyrics need to be sung with more attitude.  Much more.  In this modern metal world I think it’s important that if you’re going to play traditional style you should at least give it a modern edge in order to reach out to more people.  That’s why I liked Testament’s 2008 comeback, The Formation Of Damnation.  It had all the elements of those early Alex Skolnick/Lou Clemente-era albums, but the difference was that Paul Bostaph’s doublebass licks locked in with Eric Peterson’s rhythm guitars gave the songs an edge Lou could never give them.

Here’s the video to “First God Of The Earth” their bandcamp, and facebook pages:

http://feelnopainmetal.bandcamp.com/releases