Blue Blood

This was a 1989 single/EP by Atrocity, who I discovered with the following masterpiece, "Hallucinations" (released in 1990). While the full length was more of a "technical death metal" release and was more grounded in a specific style, this album is a bit more experimental. Sadly, this experimentalism does not work to the band's favor. In addition, this is not helped by the poor sound quality and the fact that the songs themselves are hardly very interesting.

The title track, "Blue Blood", opens this EP with an awkward drum intro. What is immediately apparent is that vocalist Alexander Krull growls in a different style for this EP, a much deeper sound which is, honestly, not particularly impressive in comparison to the Chuck Schuldiner-esque style he would employ for the ensuing full length. He also employs a handful of absolutely terrible high-pitched screams which are nothing short of completely annoying (sounds like an attempt to pull off what Napalm Death did on "From Enslavement to Obliteration"). The song itself is decent, featuring a handful of cool riffs and ideas, but the poor sound quality drains any real power from the track, especially the rather messy and (sort of) unnecessary blast beats over the song's verse.

The second track is called "When the Fire Burns Over the Sea". Despite the cool song title, this is a completely useless track, which does nothing to enhance the experience of listening to the album. It is not death metal or metal at all, but is actually an experimental track, where Krull cheesily narrates in an insipid moan over some generic industrial death/doom bass riffs. The song really comes across as a completely failed attempt to pull off what Napalm Death did with "Evolved as One", or would go on to to with "Contemptuous". Instead of creating something meaningful, it's really more or less annoying.

The final track is entitled "Humans Lost Humanity" which opens awkwardly with a technical thrash metal riff before slowing down into a completely different riff before the drums even come in, that riff being more doom-oriented, complete with disembodied moans and Kerry King-esque solos. Overall, this song, like "Blue Blood", is drained of any possible strength or power by the absolutely atrocious production. That said, there's really not much strength to be found with this song. Perhaps some of these riffs are actually pretty good, and would come out better in a more quality recording, but what I'm hearing here hardly sounds convincing, or interesting.

Don't waste your time with this, just pick up "Hallucinations" and forget about this one. Quite frankly, I'm amazed they improved so much in a single year, as this music is really quite bad.