Spanish Death Metal – who’d have thought it? Not only that this is Bloodhunter’s third release, and comes after a gap of five years with a few changes in personnel since 2017’s ‘The End Of Faith’. For Death Metal there’s a lot of variety here and looking back at earlier releases the sound was pretty well defined but there’s an experimentation here that sure might have been born out of the time the pandemic afforded us but also might be attributable to a push to grow or the influence of the new blood.
Whatever the reason it makes this album rather interesting as rather than sticking to the tried and tested template of crunching light speed riffs and growls they mix it up. Indeed there’s real sonic differences between ‘Sharpened Tongues Spitting Venom Inside’ and it’s groove and interesting breakdown and ‘Knowledge Was The Price’ with its huge drum sound and shed-fest of guitars. It’s a great opening and more than musically adept.
We get some solid heavy Deth-lite moments before the album’s showpiece – the guest spot of Tim ‘Ripper’ Owens on the anthemic ‘Never Let It Rest’ which really rushes in on you. It’s a great song and well worth checking out, as is the interesting ‘Find Your Inner Fire’ which features some cool guitar in the slower sections.
The second half of the album sounds more like earlier releases and whilst it will please existing fans it doesn’t quite have the impact of the first foray. It’s great though with ‘Spreading teh Disease’ featuring some killer shred and the heaviest track here ‘The Hunters’ making a real impact. There’s some great musicianship in the instrumental ‘ A Relentless Force’ and the rather faithful cover of ‘Children Of Bodom’s ‘Bodom After Midnight’ is pretty cool too!
There’s a lot to love here and a whole lot of variety too. As someone not really into straight Deth as such it has enough variety to keep that balance between interesting those who love their heavy music but want a little more, and those that know what they like. It’s also an album where everyone gets to impress!
7 /10
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