Ελληνικά
Last Updated on 09:42 PM by Giorgos Tsekas
Genre: Death Metal
Country: Sweeden
Label: Napalm Records
Year: 2022
Everyone loves supergroups, buys their albums and after a while regrets it. Bloodbath may be one of these supergroups but damn we never regret buying their work. Even their last effort (that many say that was a weak one; I disagree with that opinion as it may was darker and different but definitely not weaker than their previous ones) had many interesting moments and strong compositions worthy to explore. Now, 4 years later, with a new guitarist, Tomas Åkvik (Lik), the team gets stronger and more thirsty for pure old school death metal. The band has for almost a decade the same frontman (third in a row, replacing Peter Tägtgren and Mikael Åkerfeldt), Paradise Lost’s, Nick Holmes, who in his third studio full length (after “Grand Morbid Funeral” in 2014, and “The Arrow of Satan Is Drawn” in 2018) sounds more brutal than ever. His throat after all has a characteristic hint that captures all the rotten energy that Bloodbath’s songs unveil. No matter that there’s nothing innovating here, as ‘Survival of the Sickest’ oozes an Autopsy meets Entombed meets Gorguts meets Morbid Angel meets Dismember meets Asphyx… hmm I see that the list is neverending, but you got the main idea, aura that makes the atmosphere suffocating for any unsuspicious listener. Another remarkable thing about the new album is that despite the new guitarist and the several guests; Barney Greenway (Napalm Death) in “Putrefying Corpse“, Luc Lemay (Gorguts) in “Carved” / “Born Infernal” and finally Marc Grewe (Morgoth) in “To Die“, the album has a homogeneity and a flow that makes it heart pleasing. Great songwriting, excellent performance and honest dedication to the foundations of the genre that could have only brilliant results, such as ‘Survival of the Sickest’.
