Author: Sandi Sadar Šoba
Artist: Bloodwrath
Label: Rising Records
Release: 2011
Length: 44:07
Rating: 4.5/5
Back in 2009, a young five-piece of truly aggressive upstarts decided to brutalize the world and scream their rage at it, mercilessly and in full guttural style. Within just two years they’d landed a deal with Rising Records and recorded and released their full-length debut The Hate Effect. The band took its name from the mental state that the heroes of Brian Jacques’s fictional novel series fall into, where they can’t tell friends from foes. And as if on cue, you can catch merciless English rage on the small screen these days, right in the middle of the daily news, so the thrill of setting off on an unpredictable ride through the dark moments of this record is that much sweeter.
Sonically, Bloodwrath are worthy heirs to the truly devastating musical legacy of their home island, and in their metal vocabulary they don’t lean on modern-day crap. They’re disciples of the old school of hellish, demonic Scandinavian melodic death metal, with some thrash trimmings. It’s like listening to Lamb Of God, but sung through the lungs and throats of a northern European metal soldiery, or like the northern hyperblast heavyweights Kataklysm . This is by no means schizophrenia or dithering over which path to take for the band’s evolutionary bloom, because the talent of gifted guitarists Adam Green and David White, with their technically nimble antics, fits nicely together with the At The Gates-inspired vocals screamed out by the crunchingly thunderous Graham Cox. The drums obediently lash away under Andrew Ellis’s hands and feet, filling out the rhythmic passages, while the genre-tailored low end of Michael Turnbull’s bass gives the whole thing a touch of fullness from the opening track Hyperchrist on, and it stays with you every moment of this three-quarter-hour epic through the dark chapters of this truly juicy debut. The ideas are exceptionally well honed, the aggression hits just the right level to subdue your nerve endings, though the production could still be polished. Cox’s handling of the guttural black mass on the album is solid, but it sounds incredibly similar across all eleven tracks, so by the third listen you may well find it hard to tell the individual, otherwise well-executed songs apart.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lEqeLdA1V58
There’s very little deviation between the individual fragments, and so Bloodwrath tick all the boxes that could have let The Hate Effect reach for the label “outstanding” instead of just “good”. There’s no shortage of action, nor of brutal shades of rawness, varied themes and excellent compositions. Only the vocals could be a bit more varied, though even they don’t upset the balance between enjoyment and exhaustion too badly on what is a really lovely record for a debut. Besides Hyperchrist, the highlights Devastate, Against The Tide and the title track are more than enough reason to keep a justified eye on these youngsters going forward, since they’ve made a record that those of us forever hungry for good death metal can expect big things from yet!
This review was written in collaboration between RockLine and Rock Hard Slovenija.
Line-up
Michael Turnbull – bass
Andrew Ellis – drums
Adam Green – guitar
David White – guitar
Graham Cox – vocals
Tracklist
1. Hyperchrist
2. Served in Silence
3. Existence
4. Organised Genocide
5. Devastate
6. Regression
7. Against the Tide
8. Persecution
9. The Devil’s Look
10. Ablution War
11. The Hate Effect
