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Listening to music —and especially to metal – from foreign countries that aren't usually able to get their music to the United States is always fun. That's the case with R.I.P., who hail from Peru. Sometimes, the band is a unique blend of metal and influences form their homeland, crafting a sound unlike anything Western listeners have heard. That is not the case here. R.I.P.'s debut EP Escape a la Muerte is dedicated to worshipping Kreator, Sodom, and other thrashers that made their music as uncompromising, and at times impenetrable, as possible. Unfortunately, R.I.P. fall into the same pitfalls that some of those bands did: that they get caught up in making their music vicious and aggressive, but lose track of writing enjoyable songs.

Despite the constant barrage and low production, R.I.P do have a few good riffs. Songs like "Violencia Alcohólica" and "Fuerza Maligna" will get your head bobbing, but they won't do it very often, and they won't do much else. However, you can tell that they aren't just another Venom clone playing at warp speed with little musicianship, although they still might not be far off. Even so, despite some soundalikes to Venom and Celtic Frost, Escape a la Muerte just sounds like a low quality replication of a Kreator album. There were literally times where I expected the chorus from "Pleasure to Kill" or the main riff from "Riot of Violence" to start, even after five or six listens. Needless to say, this isn't original in the least. Kreator diehards will either eat this up, or decry it as a ripoff. The facet keeping Escape a la Muerte from being a complete Kreator ripoff is that R.I.P. lack the sheer intensity the band had on their early works Instead, R.I.P. simply create muffled Thrash.

R.I.P. love Teutonic thrash tremendously. It's pretty obvious from this EP. Escape a la Muerte would've been brash and maybe even innovative in 1984, but this is 2010. This style has been played millions of times before, and better executed thousands of times before.