Band:	Chaos Avatar
Album:	Morning Star
Style:	Alternative metal
Release date:	2003
A review by:	Undercraft

01. He Mentido En Tu Nombre
02. La Llama De La Vela
03. No Soy Nada
04. La Piedra Del Templo
05. La Mengua
06. El Ángel Que Enfermo
07. Sick Again
08. El Bastardo
09. The Meaning Of Your Prayers
10. ?Y La Noche Envejeció
11. Soy La Sombra
12. Historias Viejas
13. The Dragons
14. El Bar De La Cabra
15. Los Muertos

Bilingual Metal from Venezuela

Now this is an interesting project, and by writing this I'm not saying is necessarily good, is just interesting. Let's look at the facts, I don't know why these guys promote themselves as Nu-Metal, because I don't really see them as a Nu metal band, maybe one song or two have some influences but the rest of the album is quite a crazy mix of different influences.
The Venezuelan band makes music starting from the intense impact of Rock and Nu-Metal, ending in the myst and psychodelia of Techno ambient and New Age Music. Their music is also influenced by many other genres such as Industrial, World Music, Alternative, Grunge, Doom Metal and Latin Rock. That's quite a handful of influences right?
The album starts with some Middle Eastern chants that soon develop into the Nu-metalish song "He Mentido En Tu Nombre" (I've lied in your name), next song, "La Llama De La Vela" (The flame of the candle) follows the same path of the first one.
"No Soy Nada" (I Am Nothing) is quite industrial, definitively Ministry influence here, some songs use a lot of electro & Industrial samples, "Sick Again", "The Meaning Of Your Prayers" the later being a aggressive industrial-Electro Metal song.

For melancholic themes turn to "Soy La Sombra" (I am the shadow), I could swear this song sounds almost doomy. One of the most interesting tracks is "Los Muertos" (The dead) a song with tribal percussion and new age influences (someone has been listening to Era and Enigma) Did I mention that the band sing both in English and Spanish?

The whole project is quite appealing, sadly it's more appealing in pen and paper than in Cd, while the idea is quite original, the band lacks cohesion when writing and composing the material, songs lack hooks and with 15 songs in the album, some fillers are bound to appear. Maybe if these guys would stop promoting themselves as Nu Metal they could gain some fans (we all know that the term Nu Metal is not well accepted among Metal fans).
Nevertheless these guys are trying to do something really interesting and innovative, and that's worth the listen. I can't wait to hear their next album and check out their evolution.
Cheers for the Venezuelan band trying to put South America in the Metal map.