Review Summary: A solid EP that will keep Bloodbath fans happy.
In today’s metal environment, the emergence of Bloodbath and the re-ignition of the ‘old-school death metal’ craze was like a breath of fresh air for death metal fans. Their debut EP,
Breeding Death, was a fabulous entry into the annals of modern death metal, and two albums later Bloodbath have given us another EP to chew on.
Unblessing the Purity does not really deviate from what Bloodbath already laid out in their previous releases, and ultimately pales alongside the intensity of
Breeding Death. Don’t get the wrong impression though,
Unblessing the Purity is by no means a bad release, but it does not really offer us anything new. Still, it’s a very solid EP and will no doubt keep death metal, and more particularly Bloodbath, fans happy.
The EP marks the return of Mikael Akerfeldt to vocal duties, which for me is a preferred change, in light of how good
Breeding Death is. Akerfeldt sounds as brutal as ever, even compared to his work in Opeth, and growls along to the blastbeats with a very deep and intense voice. The way he moves into screeches from the growl is also excellent, as is his ever so present grunts to signal the ‘death metal breakdowns’.
Instrumentally, the album is great. Every riff is well-thought out, the bass can on the odd occasion even be heard, and the drumming is fantastic. Definite kudos to Martin Axenrot (also of Opeth) for his drumming work on this EP, it is really outstanding. That’ll put a smile on all the Opeth fans’ faces. The lead guitar is quite prominent, and from the first song we’re not spared from being shredded away. Each song is written well, but I found that the album began on a good note and ended the same way; the middle two songs were not as good as the opener and closer. Not that they are bad, they were just not as good. The first track, 'Blasting the Virginborn' has a great solo, as well as some delightful evil sounding lead guitar work; the final track, 'Mouth of Empty Praise', is based around a really catchy and heavy riff. I found that the two middle tracks ('Weak Aside', 'Sick Salvation') did not really have anything as memorable as the other two tracks.
Another important point is the artwork for the EP. I don’t know about you, but I think it looks awesome. Bloodbath held a competition in which fans could make their own artwork, and the winner would have the honour of having his artwork grace the cover of the mini-CD. A Dusty Peterson won the contest, and there is a link to his website below for those who are interested.
Overall,
Unblessing the Purity is a solid release and will most definitely appease fans until their next album is released. However, I found that it didn’t really add anything new and was not as good as
Breeding Death, even through better production and more popularity. Still, if you like anything else that Bloodbath has made, you’ll most probably like this.
Bloodbath is:
Mikael Åkerfeldt - Vocals
Anders ‘Blakkheim’ Nyström - Guitar
Per ‘Sodomizer’ Eriksson - Guitar
Jonas Renkse - Bass
Martin ‘Axe’ Axenrot - Drums
http://www.dustypeterson.net/
