Bloodtruth: Obedience

Formed by two members of Italian over-the-top metal aficionados Fleshgod Apocalypse, Perugia, Italy's Bloodtruth have just released their debut album, entitled Obedience, on Unique Leader Records. As their splattered, '90's style logo might indicate, Bloodtruth play a style of technical death metal influenced by that heady and creative era. Coming somewhere between this era and turn-of-the-millennium Behemoth, the music on Obedience is played with unrelenting speed and brutality. Over top the blasts run a swirling, cascading plethora of entangled riffs and hyperbolic leads, complemented by the generic but passable death-growl of vocalist Luigi Valenti.

The thing about an album like this is that taken song by song, one can sit back and truly appreciate the monstrous level of musicianship these men bring to the studio. Bands like this are perfect for changing the mind of heavy metal's many critics who (quite stupidly) still believe the genre lacks true skill. And as far as musicians are concerned, listening to Bloodtruth eviscerate their instruments should be tantamount to sonic heaven. The trouble is, unless you love your metal hyper-technical, it is very easy to listen to the songs on Obedience and see precious little difference between them. One wonders if each song is simply an exercise in precision or an attempt to outpace the song before it. The delivery is expertly played to the minutest degrees of timing and acumen, but the feeling the album conveys is very antiseptic. It doesn't sound particularly angry to these ears, or excited, or happy. It just sounds like really technical music played for the sake of really technical music. There are some really good moments where this pall is lifted. For example, the Gregorian chant during 'Suppurating of Deception' contrasts wonderfully with Valenti's growl and the pounding double bass. More of that please!

The one other place where Bloodtruth shows some imagination and feeling is in the guitar solos. Stefano Rossi Ciucci is a wizard of a technical guitar player, but in the solos he conjures that intangible spirit that must be present in a song in order to comport those feelings so essential to heavy metal music. The trouble is, when those solos end the sonic foundation returns, sans any attempt at a segue, into the blast, swirl, blast, swirl, repeat found throughout the album. Despite this criticism, Bloodtruth is nowhere near as pointless and posturing as rubbish like Whitechapel and Emmure. These Italians far surpass those kinds of bands in both chops and integrity. If ultra technical metal is your thing, then do not miss Bloodtruth's debut full-length. If, however, you need more variety or a more distinct and manifested atmosphere, you may want to let it pass you by. For musical ability, this would be a 5 out of 5, but for feeling/atmosphere/song delivery... 2 out of 5.

Track listing:
1. Subvenite (Intro)
2. Surrounded by Blind Bigots
3. Throes of Death
4. Suppurating of Deception
5. Coerced to Serve
6. Quench Your Thirst
7. Summoning the Heretics
8. Foresworn
9. March of the Fools
10. Obedience

Added: October 23rd 2014
Reviewer: Nicholas Franco
Score:
Related Link: Band Facebook Page
Hits: 2205
Language: english

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