Blut

Atrocity's "Blut" was the first of many, many missteps in the band's discography. One could say that it was the band's "defining" album, in that it exemplifies a lot of the odd, out of place experimentalism and oblivious trend-hopping that would go on to define the band in later years. But in the same breath, it marks itself as not just the beginning of something new, but also the end of something...with this being the band's final death metal album before they seemingly went insane and managed to release two radically experimental collaborative albums in the following year (one a folk album, recorded with vocalist Alex Krull's sister Yasmin; and the other an industrial/electronic album, recorded with the German electronic group Das Ich).

If you are coming from either of the band's previous album, you will be in for a shock here. The technical fretwork has been replaced by plodding, chugging pseudo-riffs. The intricate and fast-paced drums have been replaced by stock, basic drum beats. At least new bassist Markus Knapp receives a bit of volume and adds a bit to the picture with some vaguely interesting fretwork (even if his bass tone resembles a muffled flatulence). By the looks of it, Knapp realized his mistake and jumped ship almost immediately after this album was released. Worst of all, however, is the fate of vocalist Alex Krull, whose deep and powerful death grunts have been replaced by hollow shouting which sounds like a tone-deaf drunk's imitation of Hulk Hogan. This is, without a doubt one of the absolute worst vocal performances in death metal history, and one can basically skip to any moment throughout the disc and hear his voice to get that Troll 2 "OHHH MY GOOOOOOOOOOD!!!!" moment.

As such, it should come as no surprise that "Blut" fails to deliver on expectations held from their 1992 masterpiece "Todessehnsucht". But it wouldn't be the first time that something like this happened...there were plenty of excellent death metal bands who abandoned a riff-oriented style in favor of mid-tempo grooving, and only a handful that worked to any degree (namely, Napalm Death and Obituary). So then, what makes "Blut" more significant than say, "Hating Life", or "The Dreams You Dread"? Well, as previously stated, the band's tendency towards experimentalism began with this album, but to this day it remains probably their strangest album. The ideas presented on this album are not only strange and out-of-place, but seemingly polar opposites, and not only sonically. Who would've thought that cheesy 90's death/groove, generally associated with a modern, urban setting focusing on "real issues" would make sense when combined with cheesy gothic-romance lyrics with an underlying theme of vampirism? This is probably displayed best in the album's title track (infamous for it's hilarious music video), which manages to combine melancholy, goth rock-inspired passages (complete with extremely cliché and ham-fisted narration) beside JUMPDAFUKUP riffs complete with vocals more reminiscent of a baboon than a human. This is what makes "Blut" such an entertaining listen, it's so fucking dumb, it fails to such a grand degree on every conceivable level, that it becomes entertaining. Just listen to the unbelievably awful "tech" riff that comes after the chorus, pure comedy gold (though best viewed with the video...). The whole album is filled with moments like this...the cringeworthy narration at 3:13 in "Moon-Struck" which leads into one of the most hilariously awful riffs I've ever heard; the ridiculous video game keyboard noise during the intro of "In My Veins"; the entirety of the pointless and godawful doom-filer "Leichenfeier"; the shitty intro to "I'm In Darkness"; and last but not least...the band's cringeworthy tribute to BDSM with "Miss Directed" (the part where he screams "ONE-TWO-FUCK YOU!!!!" is a complete treasure).

But despite all this unintentional comedy, I'd be lying if I said "Blut" was all bad. In some moments, the band eases up on the groove element a bit and creates some decent and relatively riff-oriented, mid-paced death metal, namely on "Begotten Son (of Wrath)", "Ever and Anon", "Threnody (The Spirit Never Dies)", and "Goddess in Black". In these moments, the smoke screen clears and the listener gets a better vision of what the band was trying (but miserably failed) to do, at least atmospherically, throughout the rest of the album. There are also some tracks which feature cool moments, namely the melodic intro of "Blut", which is quite promising and builds a nice atmosphere, and some parts of "I'm In Darkness". That one might have a very dumb intro, but once it gets going it draws some similarities to the band's previous output, featuring faster-paced riffing and the only blast beats on the entire disc. But interestingly, the moments that probably work best are when the band totally goes headfirst into experimental territory. The folk acoustic ballad "Calling the Rain", is another high point on the album, and is surprisingly beautiful and well-written. The album also closes on a high note, with the excellent and catchy gothic metal track "Land Beyond the Forest" which features some excellent melodic guitar riffs and a very powerful chorus.

In the end, while "Blut" is a total mess and wreck of an album, it's hard not to love it. Even in it's worst moments, the album is still a fun listen because it reaches a level of goofiness that most bands can only dream of. At it's best, it's an interesting combination of two completely different genres that occasionally makes a fun listen, but ultimately pales in comparison to the work that proceeded it. What I find interesting, is that Atrocity actually continued down this rabbit hole even further, releasing a similar (yet far more experimental and far less entertaining) album in "Willenskraft" and eventually the atrocity (*ahem*) that is "Gemini". All this implies that "Blut" was actually successful, at least sales-wise, enough to inspire the band to keep making material in this vein. I'll just leave you with that thought, and to envision the kind of person that would listen to something like this and be totally oblivious to any of it's glaring flaws.