ALBUM REVIEW: Death Mother – Blodet
2023 has been a pivotal year for Church Road Records with vital releases from the varied likes of BURNER, CELESTIAL SANCTUARY, OHHMS and WALLOWING – to name but a few – all thrilling listeners throughout this year. As we reach the last part of the year, you can now undeniably add BLODET and their majestic new album Death Mother to that list of formidable artists and records.
The band have been building up a following with their hypnotic and cathartic music and Death Mother, the follow-up to 2021’s Vision EP, is an album that will consume your mind and your soul with its beauty and its epic intensity. The Swedes deliver a heaviness throughout the record, but it is done their own way and on their own terms and it never falls into any cliched forms but simply lets flow with its own unique vision. The making of the album was also shrouded in grief after the tragic passing of BLODET guitarist Rickie Östlund, but the fact that the band completed the album in tribute to him gives it its own triumphant vibe and acts as a fitting eulogy.
The shimmering title track of Death Mother starts things off as BLODET mean to go on with its truly hypnotic blend of riffs and the beautifully haunting vocals of Hilda Heller complementing each other so well. It is truly a joy to listen to, and after this stunning start the band go from strength to strength with the similarly haunting The Hour and Lead Me Home keeping the quality flowing as they let out the cathartic rage in a really quite exquisite way.
The staggering Without Within follows and this 15-minute epic is a stunning listening experience as its mixture of lush vocals and an aching groove combine to create a masterpiece of a track that will sweep you away in its wake. It will take your breath away, especially as the song reaches its monumental conclusion, before the album ends with the discordant 93-22 – a jagged instrumental which sees BLODET add more angular grooves to their music and a different vibe to what had come before. That said, it still has that BLODET vibe and finishes the album off well, demonstrating exactly why this band are so special.
Even though Death Mother is only five tracks, the way the songs on it are delivered so passionately makes you feel that it is much longer and this is meant in the best possible way, as it really takes you away in a most mesmerising way. BLODET have made a stunningly emotional and brilliant album with Death Mother, and the fact that it has been mired in such sadness in its creation makes the end result even more of a triumph over tragedy and a fitting tribute to a fallen musical brother.
Rating: 8/10
Death Mother is set for release on September 29th via Church Road Records.
Like BLODET on Facebook.