Label: AFM Records
Release date: May 28, 2021
Production: Bloodbound
Album length: 45.04 min
Genre: Power Metal
Rating: 9.0/10
After the well-received “Rise Of The Dragon Empire,” Sweden’s Bloodbound have raised their hammer high once again and charged into battle with the horrifying freaks of the dark expanses of the beyond, which sums up the mission of the album “Creatures Of The Dark Realm.” If you’re into the whole look and feel of Sabaton, Powerwolf and even early-era Nightwish, you’ll definitely find something thrilling and appealing enough in Bloodbound’s preaching too. The band’s followers, who’ll soon have been on the scene for two decades, know this all too well. But the band didn’t always speak to listeners this way. That’s how they sound especially on the last two releases. Well, and now on the third too, which, frankly, is great again. With it, Bloodbound keep up the creative, high-quality expression of its predecessor.
Maybe the new one is even more gripping, because it carries more drama and tragedy, which of course is held aloft by the incredible musical payoff of pomp that these power metallers cook up. Let’s point out that the quiet figure behind it all is their boss and keyboardist, the gray eminence. Well, the main visionary behind everything, Fredrik Bergh. This musician is something of a legend, since he once played with the Swedish AOR legends Street Talk. That matters a lot, because without it you could never have imagined such hyper-musical arrangements and such ravenously catchy chorus melodies from Bloodbound.
When a track kicks off in the CD player, it grabs you so hard that you want to tame the nearest dragon that just flew by, steal Thor’s hammer and ride triumphantly off to the end of the rainbow. Maybe that reads too epic. Or maybe not. Anyway, things look seriously bleak for the galaxy’s monstrosities. Eye Come Alive is definitely a track where, going by how the chorus is written, Sabaton unwittingly let one slip through their fingers. It’s not the only one: March Into War follows hot on its heels, and we could quickly find another one or two. Bergh has a consolidated crew of excellent musicians around him, and luckily there have been no lineup shake-ups. That’s why Bloodbound have been maintaining exceptional compositional coherence for quite a while now. At a high level. Patrik Selleby is a fascinating singer in every respect. Highly authoritative vocals, no closing off of the voice at all, with a run-up that tackles even the fifth octave as a joke. Occasionally Michael Kiske (Helloween) creeps into your mind during his performance too, and Niklas Isfeldt (Dream Evil) as well.
So here’s another three quarters of an hour of top-notch reheating of the power metal stew, which we already know well and which brings no musical revolution. But that was neither to be expected, let alone demanded, otherwise Bloodbound would probably have had to pick another genre, and that would be flat-out suicide for the band. We stay in the realm of the Scandinavian, more precisely Swedish approach, which has been sonically updated since Sabaton exploded. Sure, there’s the odd “beast” on the album that develops in a rustic way (the parallels go back to the days when HammerFall and Nocturnal Rites came into the world), but as I said, the production is modernized and, for the new times, properly bristling, or rather pouting. There are no “holes” in the spectrum of the soundscape.
“Creatures Of The Dark Realm” is thus an album of triumph. In every respect. Judging by the cover alone, and the title itself, where the exorcists of evil win for sure. But above all, with this album Bloodbound have scored another important victory. They’ve kept the high creative quality of the previous album and carried it over to the new one, which will thoroughly delight their fans. The formula they updated years ago, when they turned some Sabaton rhetoric into their own fresh authorial take, keeps firing on all cylinders.
Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Tracklist:
1. The Creatures Preludium
2. Creatures Of The Dark Realm
3. When Fate is Calling
4. Ever Burning Flame
5. Eyes Come Alive
6. Death Will Lead The Way
7. Gathering Of Souls
8. Kill Or Be Killed
9. The Gargoyles Gate
10. March Into War
11. Face Of Evil
12. The Wicked And The Weak
Lineup:
Patrik Selleby – vocals
Tomas Olsson – lead, rhythm guitar
Fredrik Bergh – keyboards, backing vocals
Henrik Olsson – rhythm guitar
Anders Broman – bass
Daniel Sjögren – drums
