Yesterday we began a 3-part post about some technically proficient bands we’ve discovered in the last few months who’ve pushed the extreme metal envelope by incorporating some unusual elements into their music. They’re not well known in the U.S., but we think they’re worth your time. In Part 1, we wrote about a mind-blowing band from Rome called Carnal Rapture. Today our subject is the equally mind-blowing Bloodshedd.
This band from the Phillipines has been making music since 1996 (with a few line-up changes over time), but didn’t release a full-length album until 2007’s Eye of the Pessimist. Late last year, the band released its second album, Spare No One, on Tower of Doom Records, and it’s an honest-to-god, no-bullshit, jaw-dropper.
For starters, we can say it’s a blending of thrash and death metal, but that really is just the bare beginning. Whatever aural images that conjures in your brains, add to the mix that all of the instrumentalists — Bong Ecat and Bike Buick (since replaced by Darwin Venus) on guitars, MC Santiago on bass, and Toots Book on drums — are technically superb and they play (a) really fast, (b) really tight, and (c) really well. And they’re amazingly inventive.
Jojo Book supplies the vocals, and he’s got the kind of raspy, higher-range shrieking tone that brings to mind Mikael Stanne (Dark Tranquillity) or Tomas Lindberg (At the Gates) — and we don’t drop those names casually. So far, so good — but there’s a helluva lot more. (read on, after the jump . . .)
Now, add again to the mix that Toots Book does mind-boggling work on the drum kit. His percussive assault is not just inhumanly fast, it’s also inventive and complex and it meshes in well-thought-out fashion with Santiago’s hammering bassline.
Now add again that Ecat and Buick shred like no one’s business — blending compulsively headbanging riffs with downright blistering guitar solos and wildly experimental flights of atonal fancy.
But here’s what really sets Bloodshedd apart: Though most of the songs blaze ahead with pummeling fury, there’s something unexpected and interesting that happens in all of them — whether it be the jazzy, down tempo riffs that appear unexpectedly in “Collective” and “Leading the Dead,” or the ominous electro-industrial tones of the instrumental “Time to Change All,” or the math-metally time signature shifts and polyrhythms that occur in “Spare No One” and “Destroy Heaven,” or the blend of funky interludes, screaming experimental noise, and fusion jazz guitar that somehow coexist in “This House of Termites.”
Trust us on this: If Bloodshedd were in the U.S. instead of the Phillipines, they’d be turning heads far and wide. They’ve sure spun our heads all the way around! This is blazingly creative music played with passion and top-shelf skill.
Currently, Bloodshedd is in the process of writing and recording for their third album on Tower of Doom Records. You can check out the music at their MySpace page — or just listen to the example below (though no one song will really tell you what the rest of the songs sound like). If you like what you hear, Spare No One is available on iTunes.