#peruvian-metal — Public Fediverse posts

You’ve likely never heard of him, but Mauricio Guerrero has been a busy man of late. I hadn’t either, until Peruvian stoner-doom band Illwind, featuring lead guitar from Guerrero, dropped their debut album in early July. Clarkkent’s positive review of The Unfolding at the End of Light drew my attention to this ‘chill record with some outstanding moments,’ many of which arrive via Guerrero’s transportive solos. Not two months later, Guerrero returns with another stoner/doom debut: Argul’s Soledad & Orgullo (‘Solitude & Pride’). In Argul, Guerrero shares guitar and vocal duties with Jose María Venturi, both of whom formed the band in 2014. Filling out the lineup are Peruvian scene veterans Jian Holmes (bass) and Alonso Guerrero (drums).1 In snatching Soledad & Orgullo from the promo bin, I was quite curious whether Argul’s debut would continue Guerrero’s hot streak or flood Peru’s stoner-doom market with middling/subpar wares.

Argul build their musical edifice on doom and stoner cornerstones, old and new. Based on Soledad & Orgullo’s cover art alone, you wouldn’t be wrong in guessing that this Peruvian quartet primarily channels early Black Sabbath. While its sylvan visual aesthetics scream ‘self-titled debut!’, Argul’s debut more closely parallels the tones and riff-work of Master of Reality. Indeed, M. Guerrero and Venturi generally keep the guitar lines dark, slow, and bluesy (“Ritual”), but they also bust out some livelier boogies that get the head boppin’ (“Hor Hodin”). The duo frequently melodicize in funerary modes (“Animal Dog”), sure to bring joy to those wallowing in sorrow at the extinction of old Pallbearer. And in their droniest moments, Argul recall Matt Pike’s minimalist axe-work in Sleep (“Engendro”). Soledad & Orgullo’s artwork perfectly portends its open, earthy music; the production is spaciously organic, and the interplay between the guitars, Holmes’s exploratory bass runs, and the backbeat drumming feels refreshingly present. You can hear minor deviations during rhythmic shifts, which is not a criticism—the album sounds like a well-curated live band.

Vocally, Argul avoid the bombast frequently found in doom and the coarseness often favored in stoner metal/rock. Instead, M. Guerrero and Venturi utilize not quite reverb-drenched ethereal lilts, frequently harmonizing with one another. This isn’t to say that Argul are peerless in how they drape voices over doom/stoner metal. Their approach reminds me of the way bands like Windhand and REZN summon ghostly atmospheres through singing, emphasizing the somber, resigned aesthetics of the genre. Soledad & Orgullo doesn’t deal out memorable hooks like the above-mentioned acts, but M. Guerrero and Venturi stitch a warm vocal blanket that’s enchanting in its own right. Other than the occasional sound clip,2 which took me out of the album’s aura, Argul have a compelling vocal duo on their hands that could be further enhanced with more attention to memorability.

Soledad & Orgullo plays as a consistently enjoyable album, though it suffers from some issues. For starters, the album can be divided into stronger/weaker cuts. Epic opener “Ritual” sits in the stronger category, itself opening with an instantly striking descent that’s harmonized to Pallbearian heights. “Hor Hodin,” a shorter track, also triumphs, developing absolutely delectable Iommian shuffles. Meanwhile, “Engendro” and closer “Animal Dog” are comparatively weaker tracks, though they aren’t bad by any means. Soledad & Orgullo can also be knocked for its occasionally overdone songcraft. While “Ritual” mostly succeeds as a long song, “Animal Dog” definitely drags at times. Nevertheless, this four-track album runs for a reasonable 31 minutes, if you don’t count the concluding bonus track. With “Kamog,” Soledad & Orgullo clocks in at 45 minutes. Yes, that’s right—the bonus track (which could be trimmed) adds a whopping 15 minutes to the runtime.3

On the whole, though, count Soledad & Orgullo as another solid stoner-doom offering from Mauricio Guerrero. He and Venturi are a talented duo that know how to dress irresistible riffs in morose guitar melodies and gossamer vocal harmonies. While Argul’s songwriting is a bit hit-and-miss, they possess a captivating sound out of the gate that bodes well for the future. Argul should be proud of this debut, which fans of doom and stoner metal should certainly sample.

Rating: 3.0/5.0
DR: 10 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: Personal Records
Websites: Bandcamp | Instagram
Releases Worldwide: August 21st, 2026

Sometimes a new band starts up and chooses a godawful name—like Illwind. I’m not just referring to associations with flatulence either—though that certainly doesn’t help. It’s just a difficult name to research, especially for a band with such a small web presence. Google will direct you to the Radiohead song, “Ill Wind,” or a 1960s psychedelic band from Boston called Ill Wind, among other surprisingly numerous use cases for the term “ill wind.” In fact, I began to have some doubts the band was real, but further research shows they do have a label (Personal Records) as well as a list of band members who have a history in Peruvian bands like Arcada, Argul, and Cobra.1 Having established this as a legitimate act with some experienced musicians, the final piece of the puzzle to solve is whether Illwind’s debut album, The Unfolding at the End of Light, is any good.

Illwind is a stoner doom outfit that creatively blends genres in some pretty groovy ways. Epic opener “Crimson Skies” gives you the first hint that things aren’t what they seem on the surface. After the song opens with the slow, plodding pace of funeral doom, vocalist Marcos Coifman’s baritone upends expectations by calling to mind the epic tones of Sorcerer and Visigoth. The funeral doom transforms into classic stoner doom with hints of Black Sabbath before ending on a series of elaborate guitar solos that have the spirit of ’70s rock acts like Lynyrd Skynyrd and the psychedelia of Pink Floyd and Blood Incantation. That The Unfolding at the End of Light ends on a cover by The Stooges, “I Wanna Be Your Dog,” tells us that Illwind doesn’t exactly have modernity in mind, and yet what they have crafted sounds fresh and sometimes exciting.

At heart, this is a work of stoner doom, with a plodding, relaxed pace and enough reverb on the guitar to give off the genre’s usual chill vibes. Illwind aims for exploration, falling securely in the school of Windhand, YOB, and Black Sabbath. They’re in no hurry, but they also don’t hold back the hooks. The guitars from Mauricio Guerrero hit all the right notes, providing distinctive stoner riffs from one song to another. And just when the tracks are about to hit their quota of stoner, he and fellow guitarist Andrés Rhor get creative with solos that transport you to another time and place like Bill and Ted stepping into a magic phone booth. It’s no hallucination if you see their solos come to life—they breathe and grow and take over a tune in a way that can be exhilarating.

How much you enjoy this depends on your level of tolerance of the stoner doom genre itself. Illwind are at their best when they go off the stoner script. The main issue is their stoner stuff can be a bit generic. This is especially true of some of the longer songs, like “God of Sleep” and the thirteen-minute “Lucifer’s Mule,” which grow repetitive. It works best in smaller doses: “Portal” and “Wanderer,” both around five minutes, provide the perfect amount of stoner riffs before breaking into the classic-sounding solos. Coifman’s voice, similarly, is good in doses, but over time his monotonous delivery adds to a feeling of stagnancy. Admittedly, though, when he opens up “Lucifer’s Mule” by singing “Tell me Lucifer” in his best impression of Ozzy, it’s a highlight of the record.

The Unfolding at the End of Light proves a good debut for a band whose members have experience in a mix of genres, from black metal to heavy metal to stoner doom. As innovative as Illwind proves to be in blending several old school genres, they’re not quite so innovative in their base genre of stoner doom. They write and play some good stuff, and with some refined songwriting, they could perfect their blend of genres or even give their stoner riffs a little more pizzazz. In the end, though, I think Illwind achieve success. This is a chill record with some outstanding moments that will have you stop and just say, “Whoa.”

Rating: 3.0/5.0
DR: 7 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: Personal Records
Website: Bandcamp
Releases Worldwide: July 3rd 2026