Being in existence for 9 years, these Germans claim to bring “straight forward authenticity to the world in a stagnant metal and hardcore scene”, whilst a couple of releases exist, both self released and through another label, ‘Rotten Leaders’ is their debut for Bastarized.
There is certainly a lot of “core” in Bloodattack, whether it be the metal variety, or the hard variety, as with most of the album, there are various influences all over the place, death, grind, hardcore, metalcore, core and more core. The constant annoyance is going from the scream-da-house down metalcore rant to the emo/nasal approach on the “clean” parts. Much as this is a fitting album for the younger, more modern day metal/hardcore kid, it’s not something that I can appreciate and rapidly gain a strong sense of boredom by track two; it’s been done to death by countless other bands, although some guttural stuff hits some areas of your brain. ‘Shed My Soul’ takes modern melodic death and introduces some low end breakdowns and some pure death notation, to me, the best track on the release, even with an improvised dance music drum beat two thirds of the way through with weary keyboard parts. There are plenty of riffs, but no solos jump out and grab you by the balls, I was expecting some, or maybe there was and I have missed them. The quick switch between blast beating and chugga chugga break-downs, mixes ok, they are good at arranging their tunes, but it is just not for me.
Taking some positives out of the music, Bloodattack would sit well with modern day err-hem “heroes”, using the term loosely, Job for a Cowboy, Annotations of An Autopsy, Maroon or As I Lay Dying, the artwork is similar to that genre, compiled by the same artist that has done Caliban and Heaven Shall Burn pieces. “A stagnant metal and hardcore scene in some instances” we may live in, but why replicate and try to add every influence in the plethora of heavy music on one release? It gives no cohesion or direction. From my perspective, a disappointing release, but then I am a traditionalist, the younger generation would go baseball cap in hand to these guys’ shows, with one hand strapped behind their back stomping around wearing backpacks listening to ‘The Eternal Shockwave’, but I myself will not be venturing within the same hemisphere.
http://www.myspace.com/bloodattack
