Jordablod : "Upon My Cremation Pyre"

The band from southern Sweden is not trying to emulate Entombed. There are some guitar passages that work together to breathe a sense of melody into things. The solos often lingers past the allocated sections. This is done with a very organic sense to both the tones on the album and the arrangements. They walk the line between death metal and black metal in a manner not unlike their country men in Tribulation. "Liberator of Eden" . Reverb coats the guitars. They hold onto the sense of melody when "Chants for the Black One kicks in. The arrangement doesn't stick as solidly and this sounds like it devolves into jamming. Some of the punches and accents towards the end of the song have their thinking caps more firmly intact.

Speaking of jam , they do that on "Hin Hale" and instrumental that works off feeling more than trying to dazzle you with prog chops. They attack "Sculptor of the Future" with renewed fury. This song is a little more straight forward, though manages to touch upon some sonic frequencies more kin to black metal. The vocals remain in their dray mid-range rasp not only for this song but the bulk of the album. "Of Fiery Passion" finds the band allowing them to finally ebb down into some atmosphere, which I think is important as it keeps them from being monochromatic. They stir things back up into more of a black metal frenzy, but this is black metal that more in common with Krallice or Mutilation Rites than Watain or Bathory. You can hear the bass amid the blast beat which gives them more balls and the subtle hook to the riff when they come out of the blast beat section at the 5 and a half minute mark also caught my attention.

The album closes with the title track that starts off with them basking in atmosphere and giving themselves more space to invoke the calm before the storm. There is more melody and grace in the build that majestically rises up from the atmosphere giving it a gleam of a slight post-rock influence without sounding like they are tying to jump on the Deafheaven bandwagon.  Over all this album is pretty solid and manages to not sound like everyone else while staying true to it's blend of death metal and black metal, I'll give it a 8.5. This album comes out May 27th on Iron Bonehead Records.