Unholy Cross

When I heard Urban Breed left Bloodbound AGAIN, I was like, shit, man, what are they ever going to do now? Being that Tabula Rasa was their pinnacle thus far and an absolute highlight of 2009, I was skeptical as to whether or not they could best that one, even with a talented singer like Patrik Johansson from Dawn of Silence (a very promising young band!). So what was Bloodbound’s response to my skepticism? Why, make the second best fucking album they’ve ever made, of course!

Unholy Cross is just a fine, fine album of traditional Swedish power metal in the Nocturnal Rites and HammerFall mode, except twice as catchy and twice as heavy. In other words, it’s a juggernaut of melodic, smoothly rocking power metal, and it is absolutely wonderful. The songs pound out of your speakers with big, heavy riffs, intricate leadwork that wraps around them like silky Christmas ribbons and marching, militaristic tempos, sometimes stodgy and rhythmic like the marches of loyal soldiers, other times rapid and unruly like the fire of a machine gun. That’s really the reason why this is so good: the compositions flow and surge like warfare units, ready for battle. I can wholly dig this album’s hungry, stoic and warlike atmosphere. Every chorus soars like an angry patriotic hymn to battle, each riff and lead hammers out like the first warning blaze to signal the coming of some enemy to slaughter and kill.

Patrik Johansson is the new singer, straight out of Dawn of Silence, and he really outdoes himself here. I was expecting a competent replacement at best, but he really powers the fuck out here, really giving his all. It’s way more than I expected from him, and I’ll be intrigued to see what he does next. He really comes close to sounding like Urban Breed himself at a lot of points on here, and the similarity between vocalists helped lessen the blow of Breed's departure. An easy transition. I think Bloodbound are just naturals at writing great vocal melodies, as each one is dramatic and engaging, automatically memorable.

Songs like the opening twins of “Moria” and “Drop the Bomb,” which are as fine a pair of power metal songs that anybody ever wrote, really show Bloodbound’s refinement of the genre they’ve been plugging out since their inception. That’s what this album is about – refinement. It takes what the band did before and improves upon it, tightening the hooks, upping the heaviness and making the songs flow better. Other standout tracks include the pounding anthem “The Ones We Left Behind,” the screaming “Message from Hell” and the explosive “In the Dead of Night.” Some of the songs in the middle are a little more generic and bland, with more phoned-in sounding choruses, but even those aren’t bad so much as just, not as good as the really awesome ones. They’re still very competently written and played songs.

One thing I really like that this band does is that they let their riffs really cook and play out, hitting the listener with the hardest attack they can muster. Both of the Olsson brothers are just fantastic players, and can apparently wing out killer riffs and leads like they were born to do it. Awesome shit. Everything on here sounds great; production-wise this is superb, with a lot of clarity and heaviness and no sacrifice at all of its booming punch. And the hooks, too! They’re absolutely infectious, and after a few listens I could recall every single song’s major one in a second. Like I said before: refinement. Bloodbound have worked hard with this, forging their influences, past and present, with a giant metal hammer into a near-perfect synthesis of what they are about and, by extension, what power metal is all about.

So yeah, Unholy Cross slays. The compositions are simple, but the songs all work with them anyway, and the experience is one of undoubtable bliss. Bloodbound are on their ways up. Watch these guys – if they can stick with just one singer, I think this will be the start of this lineup’s golden age. Highly recommended.