ANCIENT SETTLERS – OUR LAST ECLIPSE American Metal Distro

Our Last Eclipse is the debut release by this international melodic death metal/metalcore outfit with musicians coming from as far afield as the United States, Venezuela, Spain, Portugal and Finland. The band was formed recently in 2020 by Carlos Chiesa-Estomba and Herman Riera (Ex-Haboryn), Rene González (Ex- Aesthesis), Emmy Reyes (Blackbeer, Ex- Gamalyel), and Antony Hämäläinen (Meridian Dawn, Ex- Nightrage & Armageddon).

Ancient Settlers has previously released several singles and an EP prior to the debut and now we have 10 tracks for 54-minutes of intense metalcore built upon a rather melodic base with the usual hard and deep vocals but, thankfully, not the guttural growls that I find just too extreme. The music is loud, heavy and somewhat doom laden and portentous but all is tempered by the liberal use of keyboards and synths to give, at times, something of an electro backbeat whilst the guitar work is stunning and played over furious riffs and cataclysmic bass and drums. If you like your metal to be heavy, intense and earth shattering then Ancient Settlers is most definitely a band you need to check out.

The music flirts with progressive metal and just a little power metal too but the dark vocals scream out that this is death metal although not as extreme as most of the really intense and guttural death metal bands out there and the keyboards definitely give the music a more melodic edge and puts the band a little into darkwave/synthwave territory.