Bloodphemy
In Cold Blood

There are some things that never really convince me, bands with bloody names, traditional death metal (there are some bands good but most are quite boring), and albums with garish artwork. This band called Bloodphemy fit all these descriptions but I never make up my mind in advance so I have been playing this album over and over, hoping that it is something like their countrymen in Sinister because then it might be quite alright. This Dutch band begun back in 2000 and managed a demo before putting the band on ice in 2003, this break lasted for a long time but was broken with an EP in 2016. The debut album came the year after and this album celled In Cold Blood is their second.

It is a classic death metal album of the old-school type, clearly inspired by the likes of Morbid Angel and Obituary and other like them. The sound is kind of oldish and it doesn’t really feel like a new album. The gruff vocal growling is there, so are the smattering drums and furious guitars, the same stuff as has been done since the genre was born many years ago. Not much variation can be heard over the tracks either and it is probably a good thing that they keep the playing time below 40 minutes. I would say that it sounds much like most death metal so you should not expect to hear something new, déjà vu isn’t a bad term for something like this.

I guess it is an okay album in the regard that it isn’t so bad that I throw myself towards the off button just to avoid hearing it. I can listen through the album many times without loosing my will to live but I don’t really like what I hear. The songs are quite boring and the album is very predictable and I would say that there are much better choices for anyone wanting a traditional death metal album. The thing is that you need to do something better or something a bit different if you want to stand out as I think most musical avenues are extremely saturated these days and just sticking to the traditional notes will just add to this saturation without making much of a difference more than another release that sounds more or less the same and that is what Bloodphemy has done. It is one more of those albums that you listen to and then throw away and it is forgotten the moment it ends up in the waste.

Perhaps you might see it differently than I if you are a death metal fan but I am not convinced of that. It seems like I did see some pretty unconvinced reviews when I did a quick sweep of the net and I have to say that I am quite unconvinced as well. In my view this is just one more of those generic albums of a genre that is rather boring to begin with, so boring is the first thing that comes to mind when I listen to this and I will toss it into the garbage in cold blood. Now it is forgotten.

HHHHHHH