Herederos De La Bestia is a 2016 documentary about the 1995 Álex de la Iglesia’s Spanish horror film El Dia De La Bestia. The 1995 film is about a priest who’s trying to commit as many sins as he possibly can, in order to sell his soul, be present at the birth of the antichrist, and then kill it to save the world. The film’s beloved amongst those who have seen it, and the 20th anniversary documentary managed to speak with everyone involved in the production.
The score for the documentary was composed and performed by the Spanish duo Buio Mondo, who made their mark on the soundtrack-inspired electronic scene with their 2014 album Italia Violenta, which simultaneously paid homage to Goblin and John Carpenter, while also pulling in these big, heavy metal guitar riffs.
Since then, Buio Mondo has had their output limited to singles, with the exception of this release. Herederos De La Bestia marks the pair’s first film score, and it’s definitely the highlight of their output thus far. While there’s a certain sense of homage still taking place in terms of the overall Buio Mondo musical aesthetic, the music on this 10-inch vinyl record has a much more evil and Satanic feel, as is appropriate for the film at hand.
Azione Diabolica, especially, sees Buio Mondo using the electronic instrumentation to recreate the sound of classic devil pictures like The Omen, but with an undercurrent of exploitation sleaze thanks to the pounding drums and fuzzy synthesisers. The longer tracks are broken up by a series of 20-to-40 second stacco pieces (‘stacco’ being Italian for ‘gap’ or ‘interval’), which briefly dive into a musical theme. The shorter pieces create a sense of urgency not necessarily found in the proper tracks, and allow Buio Mondo to flirt with ideas which might not have been sustainable for a full three minutes.
Given that it’s been almost four full years since Buio Mondo put out more than one or two tracks at a go, so listeners should be thrilled to get these six full tracks and brief intermissions, even if it’s only 25 minutes of music. The demonic, electronic joys of Herederos De La Bestia are so entertaining and entrancing, if the only problem is that there’s not enough, it’s hard to find fault otherwise.
HEREDEROS DE LA BESTIA / PERFORMER: BUIO MONDO / LABEL: ONE WAY STATIC / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW
