Review: Kalaveraztekah – Nikan Axkan

Style: technical death metal, death metal, progressive death metal (mostly harsh vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Allegaeon, Psycroptic, Gorod, Soreption
Country: Mexico
Release date: 2 May 2025

We all love our Viking and pirate metal¹, but there are other badass peoples with awesome aesthetics just begging for albums to be made about them. The Aztecs were a metal people. The Sun god Huitzilopochtli (also the war god) demanded human sacrifice, which priests performed by the thousands in massive rituals, tearing out the still-beating hearts of the victims atop ceremonial pyramids. To obtain so many slaves to sacrifice, warfare was a constant in their society, driving the Aztecs to conquer their neighbors as an expansionist empire, all to satiate their god’s desire for blood. Kalaveraztekah, an up-and-coming death metal band from Aguascalientes, Mexico, tap into the Aztec aesthetic² on their sophomore album Nikan Axkan. Do Kalaveraztekah have Huitzilopochtli favor?

To set the stage for Aztec slaughter, Nikan Axkan sees Kalaveraztekah incorporate a healthy dose of regional folk music into their muscly tech death—pre-Hispanic indigenous instruments and percussion including ocarinas, flutes, conch shell horns, the ehecachichtli (Aztec death whistle), and the huehuetl (type of hand drum)³. With such ambitious syncretisms, the fear is always that the traditional instruments will be a gimmick, detached from the metallic core. Thankfully, Kalaveraztekah nail the stylistic clash, Óscar Dávila’s percussion specifically; beating away in tandem with Kalaveraztekah’s metal drummer, Julio C. Rivera, Dávila brings a polyrhythmic swagger to Nikan Axkan, as well as a ceremonial vibe. Besides the occasional, isolated folk section (to start the album on “Nikan Axkan – El Aquí y el Ahora,” at the end of “Tlazolteotl – La Devoradora de Inmundicia”), the whistles, flutes, and ocarinas merely take on a background role, providing ominous atmosphere behind the riffs with haunting, muted screams. The indigenous Mesoamericans weren’t messing around creating instruments ideal for metal.

While Kalaveraztekah manage to meld their folk and metal instruments impressively, the metal is woefully bland, especially when compared with the only other prominent Aztec-themed tech death band, Impureza, who sound like Beyond Creation with added flamenco and traditional percussion. Kalaveraztekah are death metal, mostly sticking to a mid-paced groove which works well with the exotic percussive elements but doesn’t create engaging riffs. The tones are all pretty standard, cookie-cutter death metal, not taking advantage of having both a lead and rhythm guitarist; lead guitarist Luigi V. Ponce’s (Indepth) “techy” parts are relegated to regrettably predictable arpeggios; and the bass playing of René Alpízar gets lost in an overly loud drum master. The production does no favors to Kalaveraztekah, making their music sound much more one-dimensional than it is—I want to hear those layers of folk and metal in their glory. 

Nikan Axkan works best at its strangest and spookiest—the centerpiece for me is clearly “Yowaltekuhtli – Un Sueño en la Oscuridad.” Ponce’s techy arpeggiation is at its best to start the track, and he even includes a slick clean guitar solo reminiscent of Stortregn. Yet what differentiates the track from the rest of Nikan Axkan is a dramatic spoken word performance, the female performer’s fright coming through even though it’s difficult to understand the lyrics. The extended noodly soloing to finish out the track also has much more energy than the more blah death metal Kalaveraztekah write on the rest of the album. I’m left wishing the band wrote more tracks with such flair.

Although birthed in the industrial hellhole of Birmingham, United Kingdom, metal is a global music like few others, and hearing bands put their local touch on the genre is a wonderful thing, especially when done well. And Nikan Axkan is a compelling fusion of metal with the traditions of Aguascalientes; that’s the hard part, and the band has nailed it. With a couple adjustments to the death metal side of the band, Kalaveraztekah can release something great while paving the way for more Aztecian death metal. So while I probably wouldn’t stage my next human sacrifice with Nikan Axkan as the soundtrack, the album sure inspired me to consider following Huitzilopochtli and to sacrifice my enemies to keep the Sun happy.

Recommended tracks: Tonalli Nawalli – La Esencia y el Espíritu, Yowaltekuhtli – Un Sueño en la Oscuridad, Xiuhmolpilli – El Amanecer del Nuevo Sol
You may also like: Impureza, First Fragment, Indepth, The Chasm, Moral Collapse, Acrania, Stortregn
Final verdict: 6/10

Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | Facebook | Instagram | Metal-Archives

Label: independent

Kalaveraztekah is:
– Julio C. Rivera (vocals)
– Luigi V. Ponce (guitars)
– Julio Alpízar (guitars)
– Óscar Dávila (pre-Hispanic instruments, percussion)
– René Alpízar (vocals, bass)

1. Ok, I certainly do not love my pirate metal. ↩︎
2. Interestingly, Aguascalientes was never under Aztec rule but rather the Chichimeca tribes whom the Aztecs considered equally as badass as themselves, although primitive culturally. Read about the tribes here. ↩︎
3. This is not confirmed, but from my research and listening, I believe that it is a mix of these instruments. ↩︎