Me Saco Un Ojo Records has fast become one of my favorite death metal labels, signing bands whose music sates my sickened sweet tooth and reeks with the dirty, rotten, filthy, stinking, rich stench of death! Warranted tags that also describe Costa Rica’s newest OSDM export and Me Saco Un Ojo rosterlings, Candarian. Inspired by early 90s death metal, guitarist Christopher G. De Haan and bassist/vocalist José Pablo Phillips (Astriferous) birthed Candarian in 2020, gigging extensively throughout their local scene on the strength of a handful of songs that would eventually end up on their 2022 demo, Stagnant Livor Mortis—a meaty morsel of moldy maleficence. Four years further down the cemetery path with tandem label partner Memento Mori in tow and that charmingly grotesque Grant Hatfield cover art in hand, Candarian prepare to dump their debut bucket of blood, Trepanación, on you, and the heads of unsuspecting prom queens everywhere. Having precariously lived through the original 90s death metal wave, I was curious to see whether Candarian would have any fresh ideas to offer. Is Trepanación the death shroud I’ll cozily wrap myself up in on a cold night, or will it have me praying for someone to strap me down and drill a hole in my skull, too?
Candarian peddle in plague-laden, gore-soaked, horror-themed OSDM, with Trepanación serving up steaming bowls of slop bloated with chunks of Incantation and Autopsy. Not entirely original perhaps, but still not a bad place from which to draw inspiration, especially if well executed. Which Candarian does, sans feats of technical wizardry, as De Haan and fellow string-slayer Felipe Tencio (Astriferous) opt instead to perform ear-hole surgery with a Golgothan bag full of rusty, tremoloed riffs, serrated squealies, and mangled, meat-hammered chugs (“Altars and Ancestors”). On drums stretched taut with human skin, blunt force butcher Pablo Umaña keeps the Candarian brain-drill from boring any errant head holes while Phillips, whose bass lines lurk and gurgle below like blood-clogged lungs (“Psychosurgery Ecstasy”) and whose cavernous bellows strike a very John McEntee chord, rounds out the cadaverous quartet. It’s clear these Ticos know death metal.
Candarian muscles their way through Trepanación with biceps built on strongwriting. Shifts in tone and pace within tracks are written with alacrity and performed with a transitional maturity that never feels forced or too abrupt. Basking in beams of light cast by “The Ibex Moon,”1 the ghoulishly fun “Zombie Miscarriage” morphs smoothly from down-tuned tremolo-monstrous riffs over lumbering double-bass rolls to drunkenly swerving doom chords and mid-paced chug ‘n squeals, all punctuated by Phillips’ rancorous roars. Another limb retaining some viably meaty moments is “Relinquished Viscera,” its sluggish, Morbificated opening riffs acquiescing easily to speedier harmonic leads and oft-used pus-pinching harmonics. The last of my odious shoutouts goes to album closer “Vilipendio del Cadaver”2 which sweats Mental Funeral-filled beads of ichor as it trudges and stomps a path filled with doomy goodness, Sabbathian trills, and a swingy section that could give “In the Grip of Winter” a run for its money.
Candarian hit the nail on the head of 90s death metal. Paying tribute to their influences without sounding overtly derivative and accomplishing this through a production that maintains just the right amount of rawness to stay menacing without devolving into the overly cloudy, reverberant depths of early cavern-core. Manageably brief, with a runtime barely cresting 33 minutes, Trepanación tends to feel longer than it is, thanks in part to all the inter-song twists and turns and to four of the seven tracks exceeding the 5-minute mark. Not a major knock, but it was something I felt on all my play-throughs. Working most against them, without having done anything egregiously bad or exceptionally good, is Candarian’s throwback “no more but no less” approach, as this can only take them so far. Which also reinforces guidance I once received from one wizened, hairy primate related to scoring death metal of this ilk.
If you’re ever in the mood for better than passable, old-school, filthy death metal, the Me Saco Un Ojo roster—Cryptworm, Invictus, Phrenelith, Ossuary, Diabolizer and many more among them—does not disappoint. Candarian, a band I’ll certainly be keeping tabs on, is another fine addition, and you could do a lot worse than spend an afternoon or three getting skull fucked by Trepanación.
Rating: 3.0/5.0
DR: 6 | Format Reviewed: 320kbps mp3
Label: Me Saco Un Ojo | Memento Mori
Websites: Bandcamp | Instagram
Releases Worldwide: April 27th, 2026
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