Blood Has Been Shed "Spirals" CD
[Ferret]
Blood Has Been Shed changes pretty significantly with each release, and they're in that strange gray area where they never really blow me away, but they also never really turn me away. On "Spirals" their increasingly diverse brand of metalcore retains tons of simple mosh and semi-technical dissonant runs with a good dose of melody while introducing some bludgeoning sludge riffs as well as bits and pieces that sound more like grindcore than anything to me. All sorts of vocals are present, from growls and totally tortured screaming to emphatic singing (which still pretty much reminds me of old Faith No More). They fly through 14 short tracks in barely 35 minutes, which comes as a bit of a surprise as I'd almost expect the songs to be longer and more developed, such as "Uatu" - which is a real standout, using some clean guitars and superb drumming with a lot of emphasis on powerful melodic riffing and far more memorable and forceful singing lines. "Prion" starts out much more melodically musically, blending in with the mosh and the discordance for a nice, effective composition; while tracks like "Greetings From the Gallows" and "Rainman" sound not unlike Meshuggah in their rhythmically stuttered chord progressions and slightly fucked up time signatures. The two instrumental interludes, "Beatnik" and "Weeping Willow", are incredibly disruptive to the flow of the CD and quite honestly bug the shit out of me, as does the equally obnoxious "Call Waiting (John Doe Has the Upper Hand)" with its chaotic and crazy for the sake of it nonsense, so I definitely think trimming the fat and dropping those three songs would have been wise, but what can you do? The recording isn't really smooth enough in my opinion. In some ways the slight dirtiness works, but I don't know, I find myself wanting the mix to be tighter and the tones to be cleaner overall. It certainly doesn't sound bad, it just needs tweaking. I love the vocal recording, and the guitar tone is close, but the drums are somewhat taut (barely, they just pop out front too far) compared to everything else, which leads to some separation. I'd warm up the percussion and make the bass more distinct, perhaps opting for a slightly crisper guitar tone (and I do mean slightly), but in the end it's not really much of an issue I suppose. I like the layout. The highlight is that the booklet has a vellum overlay with some additional printing and use of negative space on it, and inside are bright images of spirals mirroring all of the text, which follows a circular pattern on each page. The imagery is generally minimal or redundant, aside from the facial image on the cover and the band shot on the back, but it looks nice and everything is really tightly arranged. The lyrics don't do much for me, revolving mostly around typical personal issues with a few more pointed references to the fall of Babylon and such on rare occasion. "Do you have no patience for ignorance especially your own? Death to the lies, death to all manipulations, Do you ever feel that you've won this day, but questions arise? Is there a day that's not endless?" This is a very solid record that's overall a little better than their last effort, even though nothing here can touch the mastery of "Wetwork", but I have to say that despite its diversity and the concise 35-minute running time this disc gets tiresome. I'm not sure why. Perhaps it's because only a handful of the songs stand out, as opposed to impressive riffs among songs that tend to sound similar to one another? Either way, I'd prefer to hear these guys make more use of the strong singing and melody (not to mention cohesive arrangements) shown in "Uatu" rather than relying so heavily on redundant rhythms and screaming. Not bad, but they could still do better. (7/10)
Running time - 35:05, Tracks: 14
[Notable tracks: Prion, Rainman, Uatu, Technicolor Jackets]
Ferret Music - http://www.ferretstyle.com

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