Bloodrose "Into Oblivion" CD
[Retribute]
Here's some melodic modern black metal from Finland that sounds sort of like Naglfar but not nearly as good. They'd be better without keyboards, that's for damn sure. I don't know what the point of using keyboards is when they're way off in the background most of the time anyway, but the keyboards definitely take away from the ferocity of the attack in this case. I like the fact that the riffing is very tight and incredibly precisely played, but the recording needs a lot of work. Especially the drums. The drums totally sound like shit. If you told me it was a drum machine I would believe it, but it's not... despite the fact that the triggers are completely devoid of density and the cymbals sound so fake it's ridiculous. The guitars sound fucking great, and the vocals are also pretty damn strong (even if they are the typical high screams associated with the genre), but the drums... the fucking drums. I can't handle it. Thankfully the mix is dominated by guitars, so the percussion is kept in check, but this would be so much better with a full drum sound. Turning up the bass also wouldn't hurt, because I can scarcely hear a note of it. At least the songwriting is strong. I will give them credit for that. Lack of originality and recording weaknesses aside, these guys have a competent collection of songs here. I especially love the emphatic melodies in the slower chord progressions of "Shattered Dreams" and "Forgotten Chapter of Time". Both tracks definitely bring in a few outside influences that aren't so common, even if it's something as subtle as a picking pattern or a slightly progressive influenced acoustic break. "Forgotten Chapter of Time" is especially diverse, dropping some awesome solos, a lot of tempo changes, and a structure that flows far more powerfully than any other on the disc. With every song running more than five minutes it might do them some good to trim the fat on occasion, because a couple of strong compositions suffer from excessive running times, but even the less than memorable tracks have some fucking incredible riffs involved. But alas, this record's got one of the worst presentations I've seen in a long time. I'm talking total, absolute, goofy cheese. To be quite blunt there's no excuse for this. All of the artwork is computer-generated, and very obviously I might add, consisting of skulls, meathooks, and dungeons... that sort of shit. But it looks so lame... and then you get to the band photos. Out of nowhere there's a small photo of one band member pasted into each page, and behind their "normal" picture is a faded "demonic" image of their face, and that shit is the stupidest looking crap I've ever seen. Bulging eyes, fangs, forked tongues, pointy ears, "menacing" facial contortions... awful. Simply awful. I've seen more convincing work on "Sesame Street". It's impossible to take this band seriously after seeing that shit. The only thing they've got going for them is a fairly crisp and symmetrical logo, but the computer-generated bleeding rose even takes away from that. What the hell were they thinking? My main points of advice, for what little they're worth? 1. Get rid of the keyboards. 2. Clean up the recording and for the love of all things "kvlt"... get rid of those wimpy triggered drums! 3. Don't ever use computer-generated artwork or stupid ass "demonic" band photos like this again, I'd rather see your typical "black and white photo of a forest" black metal layout, without question. Too many awesome riffs are being wasted here... but these dudes could rip if they were to take the right measures. Maybe next time? (6/10)
Running time - 41:35, Tracks: 7
[Notable tracks: Shattered Dreams, Forgotten Chapter of Time, ...Final Darkness Falls...]
Retribute Records - http://www.retributerecords.com

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