Xtreme Luv!

Exousia is a Mexican Christian Extreme metal band, with progressive tendencies. I first discovered them whilst browsing Christian metal sites and found the album "Welcome to the Kingdom of Light" on Kazaa. Well all but the one song that got me to download their album in the first place. "Bebed Mi Sangra" (Drink My Blood) I had heard a sample of it and I loved it and then could not find a complete version of it. I was upset. Oh sure the rest of the album is good, but I REALLY liked this song. After waiting patiently, my favourite source for Hard hitting Christian music Blastbeats received more copies and I bought it. I don't know much about the band, but they makes good progressive extreme music with a spiritual message as bold as Mortification.

The production of "Welcome..." is a little thin, but it's mixed well enough and the guitars feel thick on tracks like "Extreme Love" and "Puede's Confiar" the later being the heaviest song on the album. Songs like "Yo Creo En Dios" and "Covenant" are fast and have a Believer feel to them.
"Salvation" is lyrically passionate and both this track and the Title track are musically uplifting with nice mixes of piano and guitars.

The 2 stand out tracks are "Bebed Mi Sangra" and "Extreme Love". I'm sure you loyal readers guessed that. Now your probably thinking " these are ballad like and slow?!? What's up with that?" Well sure, I like the rest of the album with it's heavy progressiveness, but there is something about these 2 songs that stirs a lot of emotions. For starters "Bebed Mi Sangra" is a piano driven song with hauntingly chilling soprano vocals sung in Spanish. A guitar kicks in part way through using power chords to enhance hopeful upliftingness of the song. Absolutely brilliant. The band Deborah also has this song on their demo EP, I don't know if this was a joint effort or not , but it is a great song and should appear wherever possible.

My favourite song is "Extreme Love" because it is both a great extreme metal tune as well as emotionally stirring and uplifting. The song is a mix of piano, acoustic and electric guitars. The piano is very melodic and with the acoustic accompaniment makes for a very sweet feel. The electric guitar kicks in with a powerfully uplifting riff that carries through the song. The chorus's is what I love most about the song. To the music of piano and acoustic guitar there is a duet of soprano female and death metal vocals that is beautiful in it's contrast and something I hadn't heard yet. It's unsettling and heartfelt all at once. The song is epic in feel and passionate in its praise for Jesus. Exousia is a fine band and I'll be reviewing another of their albums later on.

Up next I'll featuring some "X" bands. Let's see if you can guess which ones!