Artist: Bloodbound
Title: Unholy Cross
Type: Album
Label: AFM Records

It came as no surprise to learn after hearing this album that Bloodbound have been a support act to Hammerfall. In spite of the Death Metal sounding name, this is a bang-in-the-middle-of-the-road Power Metal band. All the ingredients are there: galloping rhythms and dramatic vocals. What was missing, I felt, was passion and originality. For the most part, right from the first track “Moria” to the end, I found “Unholy Cross” pedestrian. There were exceptions. I enjoyed the fast and frantic plucking and drumming of “The Dark Side of Life” and the excursion into instrumental fantasy land on “Message from Hell”. “The Ones We Left Behind” was far and away my favourite track. There is build-up and it chugs along very nicely indeed. The fluidity is good but even this one is not really fizzing. “The Ones We Left Behind” is the third track of the album. By the time I’d got to the sixth, “Together We Fight”, noteworthy only for its cheesy sing-a-long chorus, I was checking how many tracks there were on this smooth, technically competent but altogether dreary album. The inevitable power ballad came in the form of “Brothers of War”. I amused myself by listening for the most platitudinous lyric. The winner was “Raise our flag like a candle in the wind”. We returned to the standard Power Metal rhythms and supposedly anthemic choruses. The adventure never got started so there were no great expectations for the final, title track “Unholy Cross”. The Power Metal was softer than usual and melodic as ever, and laid claim to being catchy and epic but finished weakly and undramatically.

“Unholy Cross” is the Swedes’ third album and I was disappointed with it. The mixing was done by the guy who Sonic Syndicate and Scar Symmetry. This surprised me, as I thought this was a good omen. There was simply no glitz or fizz about this work. If you like Power Metal in its pure form, then it may well be worth your while checking it out. Otherwise I’d recommend looking for other examples to find the excitement that can go with this genre.

http://www.bloodbound.se
http://www.myspace.com/bloodboundonline
http://www.afm-records.de