Let There Be Blood

Alright, so I'm a big Exodus fan. I've listened to Bonded by Blood countless times. I own it on CD and vinyl. Essentially, I love the album. What I do not like is Rob Dukes, who is easily the worst thing to happen to Exodus. The guy cannot sing worth a damn, and this album right here is just proof of that.

I seriously cannot understand the thought process behind this. Re-record this classic record with better production. Okay, sure, but the original album's mix wasn't bad in the first place. Pleasures of the Flesh would've been a better contender, and even then, I would have wanted Steve to return for that one because that's HIS album for the most part, just like how this album is Paul Baloff's. I would've actually taken a remixed version of the album over this mess because at least it would’ve retained the spirit of the original album.

That’s the thing too, this re-recording lacks spirit. The guitar playing and the drumming is by the books and lacks any life, the mix is very dull, clean and lacks personality, and the vocals are boring and uninspired. This literally sounds like a boring no effort cash grab.

There’s other things that bother me as well. The tempo in And Then There Were None is slowed down to make it sound “heavier” but all it does is make it sound like a throwaway groove metal track from a Pantera or Exhorder album (no disrespect to those bands). There’s also other little things that have changed like the solo in No Love (which is inferior to the original) and the extra guitar harmonies in Deliver Us to Evil (which just proves my point that this sounds like a lazy cash grab). It wouldn’t surprise me if they only did a small handful of recording takes, called in Andy Sneap or whoever produced / mixed this album, and called it a day. It’s really disappointing too; this could have been a nice little tribute to Bonded by Blood, but alas, they clearly didn’t give a shit on if this was good or not.

I have only given this album a 10% because the original songwriting displayed here is phenomenal. If it weren’t for that it would get a 0%. With that, I give this a 10%, with 1/10 stars.

I read some of the other reviews in this site about Let There be Blood, and I just couldn't help but notice how people hate this album and I can't figure why. What I'm about to say right now may shock some of the most conservative readers, but it is the truth: just because something is considered perfect, it doesn't mean it's untouchable, and just because someone "touched" the "perfect album", it doesn't mean that the "touch" will be 100% sure bad. Enough small talk, let's see what Let There be Blood actually is.

This retake of one of the most influential albuns in thrash metal's history gave the already iconic songs a new clothing, a more modern sound and a way better production, with the more aggressive vocals of Rob Dukes and a higher tempo for the guitars. And I just loved it! I like Bonded By Blood, but one of the things that bothered me the most on that album is the absolute lame production. I know, that type of production was a trend in the 80s, almost every single 80s thrash album had that type of production, but I don't like it very much. Sometimes it work, like in Kill 'em All and Iced Earth's debut, and sometimes it don't. And I think that in Bonded By Blood, it doesn't worked very well. Let There be Blood fix this personal problem that I had with the album, and as a bonus, gave us a much heavier guitar line and a destroyer vocal, how can someone that didn't lived in the 80s like this re-recording?

The major improvements are, in my opinion, on the two openers of the album, Bonded By Blood the song and Exodus. These songs are SO MUCH HEAVIER in Let There be Blood that make the original songs sound like hard rock. And although in the other songs you can feel the more heavier sound (in comparison with it's 80s counterpart), in these two songs you can feel the difference the most. But something I actually don't like in this album is the bonus track, Hell's Breath. It's unnecessary, it's like they're saying that this song was worthy of being in the 80s album, and I don't think so. The song isn't bad, it just doesn't fit with the rest of the album.

Other thing I like to add is that Rob Dukes' performance on this re-recording is by far his best performance on his passage through Exodus. In his other albuns with the band, he's too aggressive for a thrash metal band. His vocals have a metalcore vibe, and doesn't quite fit with the thrash clothing, but in Let There be Blood, he found the exact spot in between thrash metal and metalcore, and it was awesome! Even though I still like Zetro more, Dukes earned my upvote with Let There be Blood.

Overall, Let There be Blood is a modern approach to a thrash metal all time classic that, in my opinion, lived up to it's "father" and in some songs, even surpassed it. The more faster and heavier approach of the album, allied with the better production and the best Dukes' performance on Exodus just made me fell in love with this album and made it earn a much higher spot on my heart than Bonded By Blood originally had. It's not a perfect re-recording, but it is in fact a really good one, and I just don't understand how can someone dislike it.

Let There Be Blood is a much maligned effort from Exodus, and with good reason. It is a re-recording of their seminal and beloved debut album Bonded by Blood, as the cover art and title suggest. It is by no means their worst release on a musical level, but that doesn't take too much effort as the hard work has already been done and a lot of Exodus' latter day output is terrible. It is also one of the more redundant and pointless examples of re-recording old songs. It isn't as thoroughly useless as Testament's First Strike Still Deadly as the entire thing features a new vocalist, and it does turn out a lot better musically than Anthrax's The Greater of Two Evils as the band stick much closer to the originals here. Nevertheless, this is rather skip-worthy whether or not you're familiar with the original album.

The main reason for this re-recording's existence according to the band is to give the material the benefit of modern recording techniques and production. This is the one positive these versions have over the originals; the songs sound notably heavier and punchier than the old songs. The issue however is that despite sounding heavier, clearer and louder than before the music is nowhere near as violent as it once was. The instrumentation on this album is delivered with a lot of faithfulness to the originals but it all sounds very tired and forced, somehow. Not helping this is that the production is so slick and the guitars are so chunky and muddy that it strips the riffs of a lot of the abrasion and nimbleness they once had; they don't sound nearly as aggressive as they once were. The guitar is also tuned a lot lower than before, making the riffs sound not quite right (the first few seconds of 'A Lesson In Violence' are a prime example.) Other songs here are played more slowly than the originals, most notably 'And Then there Were None' which turns the song into a boring groove metal chugger and makes it sound off and wrong. The solos are mostly faithful to the originals and serve as the bright spots here, but they aren't enough to save the songs.

Of course, much worse affected than the instrumentation is the vocal performance. In place of the dearly departed icon Paul Baloff, Exodus' then current vocalist Rob Dukes takes the helm, who is sadly not up to the task of replacing him at all. Instead of the original album's totally unhinged, unbelievably aggressive shrieks and shouts we get a very generic metalcore/groove metal/hardcore yell. He is by no means bad and does fit the modern-sounding music well, but it's not as if his approach functions differently from Paul's on a fundamental level. Like Paul he goes straight for aggression and volume, meaning a direct comparison can be made - and in every regard Rob delivers an inferior performance: less aggressive, less captivating, less charismatic and distinctive, less dynamic/range, less unpredictable... less everything, really.

And that is the critical flaw of this release; even with modern production this is an entirely inferior facsimile of the original that doesn't offer anything but decayed remains of what Bonded by Blood did. Had this music been novel this would be a pretty decent if unspectacular modern thrash album that showed a lot of promise, but instead it sits in the shadow of what it copies and offers very little that's new, and what it does do differently harms the music a lot. The only relative bright spot here is 'Hell's Breath', a song that never made it onto the original album; this version does sound considerably better than the rough demo from 1983. Downloading that song and skipping out on the rest of this is the way to go, as nothing else here is worth listening to - just find the original album instead.

Like many fans of old school thrash metal, I'm not particularly big on the concept of rerecording an entire classic album, especially given the inherent inferiority of modern thrash recording techniques. This isn't to say that all modern sounding "gray" thrash metal is necessarily bad, but it largely pales in comparison to the rawer, leaner and meaner approach that ruled the tape-trading world in the 1980s. However, Exodus is definitely treading in dangerous waters in attempting to rework their magnum opus "Bonded By Blood" with the same approach that gave us "Shovel Headed Kill Machine". The sound on said 2005 Exodus album, which has since become the standard of their present sound, is possessed of a certain level of charm from a standpoint of sound levels and heaviness but doesn't really work well within the template of 80s thrash.

It has been stated that this inferior rendering of "Bonded By Blood" dubbed "Let There Be Blood" is borderline metalcore, which is true in a sense, but also somewhat deceptive. This is more along the lines of what a metalcore band attempting a modernized version of retro-thrash would sound like, and the result is very different from a typical Trivium or As I Lay Dying album. You can hear some frightening similarities between the vocalists of both those groups and Rob Dukes' gimpy, pseudo melodeath shout; a sound heavily borrowed from the Anders Friden catalog of the early 2000s, but otherwise the character of the music is a bastardized, yet clearly non-metalcore take on the style. The formula has varying degrees of offensiveness, the worst offenders being the slower songs like "No Love" which listen like a mishmash of mid 90s Pantera worship with a sliver of 90s Overkill when the tempo picks up.

By the same token, when the faster and somewhat more busy songs are in question, this album starts to take on something akin to a poor man's "Bloodletting" or "Necroshine". Specifically on "Exodus", "Metal Command" and "Piranha" the feel is a bit more agitated and manages to work a little better with the modern production character, almost as if channeling some of the stronger elements of recent works along the lines of what Heathen and Death Angel have been putting out, or at least that of Dublin Death Patrol. From a purely instrumental standpoint, everything is in good working order, from the wild guitar soloing to the bruising feel of the riffs and the battery of the bass and drums. Nevertheless, the fatal flaw in all of this is that even when at its best, this album shouts out the shortcomings of its stylistic attributes in relation to the original versions of these songs, as if an elaborate art work that confesses its own lack of purpose.

It can be said with confidence that this album came out as good as it could have given the musicians involved and the professed goal of modernizing the songs of "Bonded By Blood". The problem lay in the very concept of trying to modernize a classic and legendary album in the first place, not to mention tapping an inferior vocalist with the task of filling the shoes of the dearly departed icon Paul Baloff. Anyone who has heard the original album in question and treats it with the level of devotion that it is worthy of will not be able to get much enjoyment out of this, though it wouldn't be impossible for younger fans who just recently discovered Bay Area thrash metal through the present works of several reformed outfits from the 80s to like what's on here. If it weren't for these songs already existing in a superior form and the fact that Rob Dukes isn't a convincing front man, this could maybe pass for a 2nd rate 90s Overkill album, but as is it isn't really much to even sneeze at, let alone blow money on.

Every time this insult to the real album, Bonded by Blood, is sold, the mighty Paul Baloff rolls over in his mother fucking grave.

First and foremost, my biggest complaint (among many others): Rob Dukes. The “singer”. Why? He sucks. Hard. He belongs in a screamy mallcore band, NOT a legendary old-school thrash outfit. He couldn't sing if he had to: No range, emotion, skill, anything that makes a vocalist a GOOD vocalist. His vocals are just mindless screaming that have an uncanny knack for penetrating into the migraine centers of my brain with ease.

This has to have been explained by previous users, but just for the sake of assertion, I'll still allude it: The early 80s lyrics were not meant for 2008 musical performance and studio production. In the words of a man you might have heard of named Lars Ulrich, "If you heard bands like Korn back then, you'd have lost your lunch!" It's just that with the lifeless, mechanical, crystal clear production, the glaringly slowed pace, the low, mile-thick guitar tone, and everything else not 1985 about this album makes the original lyrics, just, not fit. I suppose you'd have to hear it to fully understand the sentiment. Also regarding the lyrics, in case you're wondering what the title of my review is making reference to, it's Rob's cute little improvisation at the end of No Love, after the iconic closer Paul once delivered "Your body starts to smell!", Rob throws in a redundant, profane travesty for the teenaged listeners, "It smells like fucking shit!"

My third biggest complaint: This album's ambiguity. I hope there's no need to remind you that thrash is no stranger to being obscure, especially the kind that is so underground that the fans haven't even heard of it, but this, this is just a waste of the vinyl it's printed on. It's a pointless mockup thrown together without any real purpose other than making money. The original album was just fine. This is nothing but a sellout. A shameless, pointless, cash-in. I know that the appropriately named atrocity that preceded this and its predecessor, Shit-headed whatevertuffguybullshittheynamedit, could be described as a mallcorish sellouts as well, but trust me when I say that this is worse.

All in all, unless you're a fifteen-year-old metalcore fan looking for something with "OMG, soo meny gitar soloz!", this really sucks. Please refrain from buying it, for if you do, you're just playing into its only real purpose. If you don't want to take my word for just how horribad it really is, just search "Exodus Let there be blood" on YouTube, and prepare to get really, really angry.

RIP Paul Baloff.

Woooohoo this is bad... not like Reanimator or Acid Reign bad, I'm talking like Metallica S&M bad; almost like they should have been aware of their wrongdoings, yet they knew better and carried on anyways.


First off, Rob Douche has the most mismatched vocals I could imagine for this re-recording. That may be a stretch, but his vocals are over-the-top-mallcore-grunting-stump-fuckingly bad. His entire vocal approach does not suit this genre of music, let alone a re-recording of one of the most legendary and ground-breaking metal releases of all time.

Secondly, and just as importantly, the tempo/drum performance. Come to think of it, I resent Tom Hunting's drum performance more than the douchy vocals. What was he thinking? Since when does anyone re-record a thrash album at 3/4 the pace of the original? His drum set actually sounds good; the bass drum is nice and audible and eq'd well, all the cymbals aren't too loud or overwhelming and the snare is crystal clear. Regadrless, he failed miserably as his job. The original songs kicked 100 different species of ass the way they were, and changing the formula they started using 25 years ago is truly an unspeakable act against humanity.

The guitar tone. I said I loved the tone on "Another Lesson in Violence" so I shouldn't be hypocritical and say I don't like the tone on this album. The tone on the live album was a fresh sound at the time (1997) and had a lot more solid-state sound to it, but that's another story. I think the guitar tone on LTBB was a poor choice. It sounds like most other guitar tones I've heard on every other mainstream and thrash metal album for the last 10 years. Buy a guitar with emg's, buy a Mesa rectifier, turn the gain knob to 10 and voila! Hissy, muddy, fuzzy guitar tone that has no unique character whatsoever. For most newer bands I wouldn't really care so much, but for a band that pioneered a genre that so many of us hold dear to out hearts, I think it's totally unacceptable.

The production. Many people I've spoken to about this would argue that the production on the re-recording is "better." The guitar tone is clearer, the drums and vocals are more audible, and the overall noise due to cheap recording equipment has been eliminated. Yeah, the same could be said about the new Trivium album, only their guitar tone is better. The overall tone LTBB is so ordinary, so regular, so devoid of any real character or anything that sets it apart from every modern core band nowadays it almost angers me. Take the production from Bonded By Blood. It's noisy, every instrument is a bit on the sloppy side, and Paul obviously had his way with the echo knob on the soundboard. The guitar panning is for all intents and purposes non-existant, and you can barely hear the bass. It's also original, raw, angry, inspired, has tons of energy and it makes you bang your head as if up from the fucking dead. Or it does mine, anyways. It has character. It's unique. You listen to any 2 seconds of that album and you know damn well what it is. I think this new recording deserves so much more as far as the production went.

The magic that the original Bonded by Blood had was completely and entirely lost when Let There be Blood was recorded. The production is so ordinary, the drumming sucks, and they used the wrong vocalist. If you're a fan of any type of underground 80's metal, or anything that Exodus stood for in the 80's, don't bother buying this album. You will probably regret it.

Bonded by Blood was a milestone in thrash and widely considered as one of the best thrash albums ever recorded. These sorts of albums that really have no room for improvement are best left alone. Exodus however, decided to re-record it anyway claiming it as a tribute to Paul Baloff. Exodus’ sound has changed dramatically over the years and Exodus was faced with the challenge of bringing a slightly different flavor to the original but without tainting the original. Unfortunately Exodus has changed so much in sound that this shares almost nothing that made the original so enjoyable and there is nothing new they added to it that is enjoyable.

First of all the production is modern. With how Exodus have been producing their albums over recent years this not surprising, nor is it necessarily a bad thing to have a heavier more modern production. Unfortunately this does not suit the songwriting for Bonded by Blood. The songs are written for a slight NWOBHM flavor like many other thrash albums that were being released in 1983 and 1984, so the heavier, crunchier production does not suit the songwriting. It needs higher tuned guitars playing very fast and catchy rhythms. Let there be Blood is completely devoid of the fast galloping rhythms that helped make the original so great due to the modern, crunchy production.

The intensity of fast rhythms and wild solos has dropped down a dramatic amount with this re-recording and it just sounds like a band now that is uninspired and just trying too hard to sound a certain way instead of just playing and having fun. One of the most enjoyable things about the original is that Exodus was having fun, and the music sounds real and inspired. There is this sense of uncontrolled wildness that you just want to go crazy when listening to it. All that is lost in Let there be Blood. It just sounds too controlled and lifeless. Piranha, for example was a song with a really fast tempo on the original and made me want to just go crazy; basically thrash. Now the re-recording just goes in one ear and out the other as the tempo is slower and has absolutely zero intensity. My head is not even nodding along to this one.

The other huge problem is Rob Dukes. Sure he is a problem on just about everything he has done with Exodus but his dry, monotonous, tough-guy shouts is just so unfitting for Bonded by Blood. Paul Baloff was wild, untamed with a very over the top style that was just so fitting. It added to the craziness and catchiness perfectly. Dukes’ part modern hardcore style vocals is just so unsuited for fast, and catchy thrash riffing and with him behind the mic Exodus should continue with their groove sound instead of trying to be thrash again. Another Lesson in Violence is a perfect example of where Dukes fails. The chorus of that song is just so memorable with Baloff’s voice changing pitch and just feeling what he is singing. Dukes sounds like he is almost reading it off a script, as he doesn’t change tone once and continues with those teen-angst shouts.

This was meant to be a tribute to Paul Baloff but is really no more than a shameless cash grab and should never have been recorded. Forget this and listen to the original. Exodus should be embarrassed and ashamed for shitting on what is one of the greatest albums ever recorded.

When a band starts re-recording their old stuff, it is a good indication of where the band is heading to, I have to admit, The last time i heard anything great from this band was Impact is Imminent and Exodus is one of my favorite bands, They like Testament have been a disappointment for 20 years now. After the departure of Baloff/souza, Rob dukes filled in and the band was never the same again, I never wanted Exodus to sound like this, They were once one of the most original bands in their class but now they're nothing more than a mediocre sounding band with a half decent vocalist.

What is this?. Bullet for My Valentine's Tribute to Bonded by blood? or is it Avenged sevenfold?. It certainly sounds nothing like the Exodus i respected. Was there ever a reason to do a re-recording of a trend setting album like Bonded By Blood?. Maybe a band out of ideas trying to sound something like their former selves. The guitar work is clean, The vocals sound good and that's just how most alternative metal albums are these days, The album lacks any kind of intensity which made the original recording good.

Firstly, The tracks are much slower and lack any kind of intensity, Rob Duke's vocals try too hard, The guitar work is pretty decent, The production values are good. Rob sounded best in the Angry Retarded Killing Machine album and that wasn't all that good at all. Rob duke sounds nothing like Baloff, And it made me want to return the album when i heard the slow, metalcore version of the original "Piranha". This is nothing more than a band trying to cash in on nostalgic fans and failing BADLY. This might however appeal to angsty little fans who never heard the original bonded by blood by Exodus Or maybe it is for Old Aging metal fans who can't keep up with the pace of Bonded by blood, so the album was recorded at half the speed of the original. Way too Brootal for old people.

The album is completely devoid of anything that made the original so good, Ignore it and hope Exodus can somehow be reborn again. If you haven't heard bonded by blood yet go buy it and ignore this abomination of a great album.

This is the ninth full-length studio album from the Bay Area thrash legends, and the third with latest vocalist Rob Dukes. However, this is NOT a 'new' album of material. It's just a re-recording of 'Bonded by Blood'.

I'm going to be frank. I haven't enjoyed the new vocalist on either of the past two albums. And I don't enjoy him here. I don't really want to hear an Exodus record without Zetro or Baloff. In fact, I found the past two albums were lackluster in general. Even further, I haven't really enjoyed this band since 'Impact is Imminent', a long time ago.

So why would anyone want a remake of a classic like 'Bonded by Blood'? It certainly doesn't need one, so I'm assuming this is just a celebration of sorts of the band's history, yet an attempt to integrate the 'new' in with the old. Unfortunately, this is sub-par in every way to that classic album which tore us a new asshole in 1985, with one possible exception. Dukes isn't particularly to blame here, he still sounds like a metalcore/melodeath singer covering Baloff, but gone are those classic snarls the first two singers were so good at. The main fault is the production, it's just too clean and lacks the raw venom of the original. I mean "A Lesson in Violence" is one of my favorite thrash songs ever...yet if I had heard it hear first, I'm not so sure I'd have ever liked it. The musicianship is still tight, the guitar playing in particular is quite good on the solos, the exception I mentioned earlier.

But enough with the remakes, already. This is a perfect example of why it's not necessary.

Exodus has always been a somewhat consistent band in the quality of their releases. For each release, I've found the vocals to be fantastic, and the song writing to be great... And then 2005 rolled around. Souza was gone, and Dukes was in. "Shovel Headed Kill Machine" came and went without much notice. Then came "The Atrocity Exhibition... Exhibit A" in all its crap covered glory, and now it has come to this...


"Let There Be Blood" was recorded as a tribute to Paul Baloff (RIP), although it has done more harm than good. It seems as if a fair number of well known bands have developed a bad habit of re-recording their old songs and Exodus is now one of those bands. "Bonded By Blood" is quite possibly the finest album that this group has done, so coming into "Let There Be Blood", I knew not to have very high expectations (especially after hearing "The Atrocity Exhibition... Exhibit A"). Any bad thoughts I had about this band and album were shattered in the very moment that Dukes' vocals came over the stereo. This wasn't bad. This wasn't terrible.


This was complete and utter shit.


Everything that "Bonded By Blood" had was definitely not carried over into this record. Why Exodus believed they could pull this off with the way they've been "progressing" in recent years, shall forever remain a mystery. The entire band sounds sloppy, which gives the feeling that this was thrown together by a band of autistic kids. The drums should have been left out completely. They're sloppy, poorly done, and there are no flashes of brilliance, or amazing fills. The bass is its usual lumbering, repetitive, single-note self. The guitars are so forgettable, I can't even remember how crappy they were, and then there were the vocals, courtesy of Rob Dukes. The screaming, mallcore, "I'm having a tantrum because I didn't get my favorite choo-choo train" vocals. Please finger, click the off button and make the headache stop.


"Shovel Headed Kill Machine", displayed a sick, but still alive Exodus. "The Atrocity Exhibition... Exhibit A" was the moment that Exodus' heart stopped beating. Now, with "Let There Be Blood", we're just coming home for the funeral.