Thursday, 22 January 2015

Bloodshed - Skullcrusher

BLOODSHED - Skullcrusher (LEDO TAKAS - 7"EP 2001)
Some time ago I was reviewing an awesome album from the Swedish band Bloodshed titled “Inhabitants of Dis”. This is rather little known and very underrated band, but I loved that album a lot, it impressed me totally. I was searching then for some more recordings from them and soon I found also the 7”EP “Skullcrusher”. It was released by Ledo Takas from Lithuania on vinyl, while Code666 (Italy) took care of the CD version. For 7” vinyl, it’s quite lengthy material, with over 15 minutes of music, which is really cool. It’s good that musically “Skullcrusher” is also a worthy recording, what only proves that Bloodshed was not an average, forgettable group, but better than you would expect! 
Anyway, “Skullcrusher” is on the turntable today… and it is really nice 7”EP. Stylistically it blends death and black metal, with small advantage of the latter of these styles and with more rough and harsher sound and playing when compared to the “Inhabitants of Dis” album. “Skullcrusher” is actually pretty straight forward and merciless offering, built upon some very rude riffs and often quite fast pace. This is not a pretty music, let me tell you! It’s sometimes even close to some Mayhem meets Marduk, etc, no mercy then! The production is quite crude (so unlike to anything else you’ve heard from Sunlight Studio!), but it fits well such aggressive and violent death / black metal. And such songs like “Laughter of Destruction” and “Skullcrusher” are just great; furious, intense and fuckin brutal. But at the same time such “Let the Bloodshed Begin” is nothing special, but rather boring song... So, this EP is not quite as excellent as the mentioned full length album, but still a very decent and solid recording from criminally underrated band. And I have only one problem with this EP – the recording quality of the vinyl is not perfect, maybe because of these 15 minutes of music squeezed on a 7” vinyl. Limited to 666 copies it is.

Final rate: 68/100

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