O agios pethane

Somewhere beyond the disgusting lyrical content of Carcass and the punk extremity of Napalm Death lies Blood. Blood spew out grindcore that lies firmly on the death metal styled side of the genre which plays down the punk influences as much as possible. The result is an album of what are essentially short, simple death metal songs, which surprisingly enough ooze atmosphere. The production is heavy on the bass, but the guitars and drums come through perfectly clearly as do the vocals. What we have here is the right amount of dirt and grit chucked into the mixer for it to satisfy grind fanatics but enough quality to cover all the basses so that all the layers of the music still come through.

A typical song is made up of three or four riffs that are arranged and delivered in such as way as to create an epic in the space of two minutes or so. Occasionally the music collapses into what seems like total chaos only to be brought out into a more structured and ordered passage; a trick that many older grindcore bands use. When one listens to more traditional grindcore one is very much aware that the song length is often times less than a minute, this is not the case with Blood; they manage to accomplish in these micro songs what most could not do with five minutes of music. Tempo changes interact so well with the riffcraft that even the anti-minimalist listener will not be alienated by this sound. Riffs are mostly of the death metal variety, but there are some that could be found on a thrash album, if thrash were played by the cast of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Guitar solos are simple and have the same contorted quality found on Carcass’ debut that made them sound like they were being turned inside out and serve to add or detract from the chaos when needed.

Vocals vary from a unique low end death growl from the very back of the throat to the occasional demonic high end scream to add emphasis and variation saving the music from monotony. One cannot talk about this album with mentioning the lyrics however. This is certainly an occasion when being at least aware of the themes explored here really does add to the horror of the listening experience. The lyrics are twisted beyond belief. This is not done through the use of the same pornographic ejaculations to be found on every dime a dozen gore grind band ever since Carcass however. The lyrics tell tales of twisted horror and human decay but in a less literal sense than most of Blood’s peers, playing on our darkest fantasies and horrors.

From all this one is presented with an album where all the elements are simple but the end result is more than the sum of these parts. In short this is a no thrills affair; the album is switched on and for half an hour Blood show you the depraved horrors of humanity’s underbelly where most fear to tread and then the album ends. I highly recommend this to all who are as yet unconverted to grindcore as I believe that this release is unique and powerful enough to hold your attention.