Rating: 6.0

Country: Spain

Release Date: 2005

Record Label: Panik Terror Musik/PHD

Track list:
1.Necrorder
2.Warlike Spirit [mp3]
3.Interlude I
4.Unity to Oneness
5.133 Before Death
6.What Never Was Dead
7.Triumph of Death I
8.Aeon's End
9.Triumph of Death II
10.Vicious Torment [mp3]
11.Interlude II
12.Nihil Storm
13.Brilliance in the Eternal Darkness

Band Website: Bloodoline

Bloodoline - Storm & Brilliance

Ghoul Luyer - Strings, synth, vocals
Entity - Drums
Vael Vermin - Bass

Hailing from the darkest frozen depths of Spain, Bloodoline plays a very cleanly produced form of alternately melodic and chaotic black metal. That sounds like a great combination, but there's something preventing me from fully enjoying this disc. There's no denying this is a quality package – the band is obviously quite competent musically, playing very precisely and with much dexterity. I think the main problem here is the vocals – they're basically an incoherent yowl, mixed very loud and often seemingly belted out over the top of the music without paying a lot of attention to matters such as rhythm and structure. It almost seems that the vocalist just stood in the studio and screamed his head off for half an hour, then randomly overdubbed the result over the instrumental album. If the vocals were mixed lower and buried in a fair bit of reverb and fuzz, it would probably enhance my enjoyment of this album tenfold, but as it is they're so obnoxious that they're impossible to tune out.

Okay, that's the griping done, but if you have no problem with OTT vocals in black metal then you'll probably get a kick out of this. Musically it's quite schizophrenic – sometimes there's a glaring similarity to hyperblasting “norsecore” outfits like Dark Funeral and Marduk, other times the pace slows down to much more relaxed crawl, and sometimes the riffs are bizarre technical mindfucks. The latter sections are mostly played in a very clean, undistorted tone which allows them to be perfectly comprehended.

Of the 13 tracks here, only 6 are actual songs. The remaining 7 tracks are interludes, ranging from atmospheric noise to mildly cheesy synth passages, with a folky medieval feel often present, especially in “133 Before Death”. These do a good job of breaking up the insanity and allowing the listener to recover before the next onslaught of insane screaming, although some will probably dismiss them as filler. They constitute roughly ¼ of the total playing time, so if you don't like them they can be easily programmed out and you're left with 28 minutes of chaotic black metal.

In synopsis, approach with caution. If you like well produced modern black metal with a varied approach, you'll like this, but the vocals are definitely, well, unique. Whether they'll tone them down on the next album or keep them the same remains to be seen, but for now, they're a bit of a sticking point for me.

December 11th, 2005