Lie or Die

Full credit to Martin Mendez. Best known as bassist with OPETH since 1997, the Barcelona-based Uruguayan could conceivably have swerved the side-project route altogether and been content with membership in one of the most revered bands on the planet. Instead, he launched WHITE STONES with excellent debut album 2020's "Kuarahy", establishing a crystal-clear blueprint for gnarly, old-school death metal with a pronounced, and perhaps inevitable, progressive streak. The latter does, of course, lead to certain moments on "Dancing Into Oblivion" faintly echoing the early works of Mendez's alma mater, but the band's second observation is distinctive enough in its own right to briskly club those comparisons away…