The Arrow of Satan Is Drawn

The Swedish death metal classics Bloodbath return with their fifth studio album. I was not expecting anything good because I've never been a big fan of Bloodbath. Sure, "Nightmares Made Flesh" is a great album. That's about all I care about when it comes to this band. However, "The Arrow of Satan Is Drawn" was surprisingly beyond what I expected.

The first single for this album was "Bloodicide", a song whose title is basically synonymous with apoptosis. The song is soaked in distortion (as is the entire album, obviously), and the only redeeming thing about it other than the lead work is everything that goes down after the four minute mark. Swedish death metal always sounds pretty similar and hardly meanders outside of the box, and the only draw for me is the occasional good riff. However, with "Bloodicide", it seemed like Bloodbath were beginning to take Swedish death metal beyond just good riffs. They thought outside of the box.

After the entire album dropped, it was obvious that they wrote it with this same focus. As far as riffage goes on this album, it varies from time to time. At some points, it's fast and ripping, whereas on other songs it's groovy and crushing. There are complimentary lead guitar parts every now and then, making things interesting. What really stands out to me are the small symphonic elements every now and then. On tracks like "Morbid Antichrist" and "Chainsaw Lullaby" there are added elements like choirs or orchestration in the background. All of this is nice to have because Swedish death metal can become boring very fast, and this album avoids that by offering new themes and captivating passages.

The album is very strong until tracks eight and nine where everything seems to become fairly tame. The last minute of "Only the Dead Survive" is an exception, but everything leading up to it is too bland to be made up for by the outro. Luckily, "Chainsaw Lullaby" brings everything back to normal, as it is a decent song. However, I think that "Only the Dead Survive" would have served as a better conclusion for the album, as its ending was more epic. "Chainsaw Lullaby" is a song that seems to be too fast to end the album because it stops abruptly. I feel like this album needed an outro that carried on. Nevertheless, "Chainsaw Mutilation" is definitely a fun song that has some pretty cool themes going on.

Pretty much everything about this album is well done. The production is clean which actually emphasizes the grittiness of the distortion-saturated guitar tone. The riffs are good for the most part, and the songwriting is some of the best songwriting I've heard from a Swedish death metal outlet. Of course, this is not up to par with "Indecent and Obscene" or "Left Hand Path", but it is definitely above most other modern bands trying to replicate the classic Swedish sound.

Overall Rating: 89%

Originally written for themetalvoid.wordpress.com