XIBALBA - Ah Dzam Poop Ek 2LP

(Description by J. Campbell) Originally released in 1994 on the legendary Guttural Records label, “Ah Dzam Poop Ek” is the debut album from Mexican black metal pioneers, Xibalba Itzaes. Formed in 1992 by two brothers in Mexico City, the band was originally called Xibalba, named after the Mayan underworld, where the gods of death dwell. Having sought out and studied heavy music since they were kids, the emergence of black metal in the late-1980s and early 1990s provided a catalyst for them to begin recording serious music of their own. Having witnessed the stagnation of death and thrash metal, “black metal was an injection of vitality into a music scene that was literally dead,” according to guitarist/vocalist Marco Ek Balam. Inspired by Quorthon’s veneration of his Viking ancestors, Xibalba turned to Mayan lore — especially the foretelling of civilization’s doom — for the concepts and aesthetics undergirding the project. The band’s poetic lyrical content, mostly written in Latin or Eng