Manuel's Parasite throws you right into the fire and lets it burn.

The opening track "25% Gone," is over seven minutes long, and it seems like a slow unraveling, a swirling puddle of distortion and death-metronome percussion that pattern just ten or so beats off from where you thought you were going, a glittering, intensifying build. It brews, then blows up; like exploring something too vast with nothing more than the orb in your chest to clue you in every step along the way.

Manuel - a boundary-breaking progressive Latin metal band - knows exactly what they are doing here.  From this soaring beginning, "Native Temple" (with guest vocalist Ryan Reeves) veers into a deeper, more layered space uncarved. Less direct, more immersive-it feels like the vocals are reverberating through a colossal chamber, something ancient yet disconcertingly present.

And then "El Sonido Robado: Crowns of Deception" arrives with Ryan Raes, and everything gets even more intense. Slightly more condensed and precise, the riffs ring out without being painfully slow, vocals cutting through with a clearer tone, if not intention. "Sueos y Necesidades" brings the pace down once more, the track short and intense; a blink of an eye before one turns right around again, there being very little catharsis to be obtained. It simply passes on and remains.

"Ladrn" (w/ Patrice Elizabeth Vigeant) plays with opposites. The conflict between the voices creates a tension that generates an oddly tensionless explosion, something more internal, like two conflicting points of view meeting midstream. And "Greed's Exodus" ends on the feeling of heaviness rather than relief. It rises, it reaches high, and then it just… lingers unresolved, as if the issue it's raising hasn't gone away.

Much of Parasite's success is in the arrangement. Underlying makes it work-you've got Manuel Urgiles on guitar, keys, and providing the bulk of the atmosphere-while Thomas Hiscock is down to work the bass guitar (and sing) imparting that weighty, earth-shaking feel in the songs. Spoken word from Manuel and Lucio Valentin Urgiles impart a dangerous, rough-and-ready feeling- bits of more substantial thoughts creeping through the fuzzy sound. While Reeves, Raes, Patrice Elizabeth Vigeant and Hiscock all have different vocals, you're never quite sure where you're going next, which is a huge positive.

Theme wise, it's trapped in something broader than itself. The EP is targeting the stranglehold of those on top, revealing how divide-and-conquer is implemented as a method of control while power quietly consolidates. There is a lurking undertone here that strikes a chord- reminds of contemporary scandals and structures that shield themselves, something so directly associated with Jeffrey Epstein-like figures where power manipulates regulations and avoidance of responsibility. There is no over-explanation-it simply places that feeling in the atmosphere, blended into the music.

So, yeah, “Talking truth to power" is a phrase I hear often, but rarely do I see it truly met. Parasite is not polished, it is not precious, and not self-aggrandizing; it’s rough, urgent, and, occasionally, too much-but therein lies its power. It rings from within the constraint, rather than from without.

Manuel’s Parasite can be found here or wherever the very best in progressive metal is being forged.