Bloodbath - The Arrow of Satan is Drawn - Album Review - Death Metal from Stockholm, Sweden
Favourite:
Song - Bloodicide (ft. Jeff Walker, John Walker, Karl Willetts)
Deep cut - Warhead Ritual
Solo - March of The Crucifers
Riff - Deader intro
Lyric - “So I learn, from the persistence of indoctrination” - Morbid Antichrist
Nightmares Made Flesh will forever be in my list of all-time favorite death metal albums. However, with an album as iconic as “Nightmares Made Flesh” you can see the struggle for releasing follow-up albums without receiving scrutiny. Although most bands would struggle to live up to a well-received release, Bloodbath is different for some reason, and they proved this on “The Arrow of Satan is Drawn” (2017, blackened death metal) where they make something completely different while still amazing. Sure, they struck gold on “NMF” but yet they still somehow managed to keep striking gold on all their follow-up albums. In a nutshell, their new album is dark as fuck with lyrics that scrutinize the act of humanity in this amazingly dark and poetical journey that serves to map out the imminent downfall we are approaching, which is pretty apparent by the legendary album title.
I think the band has always thrived off of being different, I mean they’re one of the best metal supergroups in the world for a reason. Musically it’s vastly different to anything else yet it still has clear styles and influences. Especially in the opening of “Levitatot” where it starts out super sludgy, gross and just brutal as fuck. Compared to other songs that are just straight out brutal, dark and fast from the get go. What’s always interested me about their instrumentation on all their albums is how they convey this feeling of dragging something behind in certain parts of the songs (normally towards the beginning) and although I think it’s not specifically deliberate, it’s still an amazing feature that speaks to the insane musicality of each individual and their ability to convert emotion and narrative into the physically playing of the song.
Tracklist:
1. "Fleischmann"
2. "Bloodicide"
3. "Wayward Samaritan"
4. "Levitator"
5. "Deader"
6. "March of the Crucifiers"
7. "Morbid Antichrist"
8. "Warhead Ritual"
9. "Only the Dead Survive"
10. "Chainsaw Lullaby"
Bloodbath continues proves to be one of the most successful metal supergroups of all time, with their unrelenting spirit towards brutal death metal, the band will never disappoint, and neither does “The Arrow of Satan is Drawn” - the perfect soundtrack to when humanity starts to burn as we continue down this path of self destruction.
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