The junction of hardcore-metal's most furious moments with emo / ambient's most intense passages is how Mahumodo's sound could be described. Perhaps comparable to a mixture between Will Haven's heaviest parts with the climates and the beauty of Tool's most emotional passages, this London based band's music impresses by the constant amount of emotion that their songs exude, be it in their aggressive moments or in their melodic ones. Their tunes can also remember a more emotional Earthtone9, still being a little bit rawer in their heavier moments. What puts Mahumodo away from these aforementioned bands are their songs' dark passages. This band definitely knows how and when to change the vibe of their songs, transforming a cathartic heavy part to an emotional dark passage with a harmonic perfection, something that's not easy at all for songs which clock in at 4-6 minutes.

The instrument responsible for bringing the band's emotion to surface is undoubtedly Rich's guitar. Mahumodo's guitar lines are almost like a scream for help, you can feel every chord in your skin. Rich can somehow transmit every sense of agony, anger and frustration into his instrument, coming up with riffs that truly agonize the listener, and that couldn't work better with Medi's versatile vocals, which may sound as angry as Grady's (Will Haven) screams and as beautiful as Jonny's (Spineshank) melodic voice. The combination between those 2 elements (guitar and vocals) puts the band a level above inumerous bands of their genre, and the creativity used in the writing process of each of their songs only back up this statement. All 4 of the tracks presented in "Shels" sounds perfectly coherent, making the listener feel as if they were on an emotional rollercoaster in high speed.

This release loses points, though, when we take notice on the drums. The drum work sounds really basic, lacking audacity and aggressiveness, and that definitely puts the band down a bit, since the sound they're managing to create definitely asks for better and more creative drum work. Also, Mahumodo tends to repeat the songs' verses too much on some tunes, taking too much time until they get to the songs' climax, something that may be kind of annoying after a few listens. Still, the band's music overcomes all those flaws, the songs presented in this album are sure to make the hairs on the back of your neck stand up. Nothing sounded so emotional, and still so heavy, in a very long time.

Mahumodo introduced nothing but refreshing music into people's ears with "Shels", and if we are to judge about this independent record, this band will be undoubtedly going places in the very near future. Their music isn't just generic new metal, generic hardcore metal or anything for that matter. It has a little extra, a certain flavor of suspense and agony that, when added to the usual heavyness, puts this band in a stand out position; a position that they definitely deserve.
(4.5 / 5)