Bloodway - A Fragile Riddle Crypting Clues (2017)

The elephant always in the room with a Bloodway record is that the band is an auditory vehicle for one of the most unique, compelling visual artists in the entire metal medium, Costin Chioreanu. Hell, even on a bad day, this man's cover and graphic design work is more fascinating, abstract and eye-catching than nearly anyone else out there, so when A Fragile Riddle Crypting Clues arrived, or its predecessor Mapping the Moment with the Logic of Dreams, I must have spent ten minutes just looking at the things before even daring to explore the music itself. No pressure. Thankfully, ever since the first EP back in 2014, the Romanian three-piece has delivered an experience aurally that can rival its imagery, a hybrid of progression and extremity that circles the drain of its black metal ancestry but then runs off in rivulets in a myriad of directions without sacrificing a coherent musical narrative.

Hypnotic, atonal ambiance and poetry inaugurate this sophomore full-length before the tumultous chords erupt, coiled and dissonant but with a subtext of melody that creates a warmer feel than your garden variety newsprint black metal. Costin proscribes to the tortured soul, huffing style of snarled vocal which is slightly higher pitched than many of his peers, suicidal in shape, and very likely to drive half the potential audience mad within moments of hearing it. I am not in that half, because I appreciate the strange contrast it creates against the busier, roiling mold into which the riffs are formed. Organic rhythm guitars teeming with melancholic chords, whether configured into pure black metal chords or flights of thrashier picking, often with an alien feel reminiscent of a band like the mighty Voivod, though that is not always the rule. Nicely balanced bass lines that often hum just below the frenzied fretwork, but occasionally swell up to a more distinct, popping fervor with a few curious lines of their own. The drums are splashy, constantly attentive, and laced with the fills and footwork requisite to fulfill the demands of the eclectic riffing progressions.

I want to say I'm reminded of high-brow progressive metal acts like Opeth or Cormorant, only with a lot more natural, less processed, less 'safe' tone and structure to the guitars and presentation, and capped off by vocals that are far more in the vein of bands like Weakling, Bethlehem or Burzum, but not copies. The album is super well rounded in terms of how harsher passages are countered off by gentler moments and then swung back around to a passionate, frenzied crescendo. You'll find differently structure riffs and harmonies in all the metal tracks, revealing that Chironeau is well-versed in a lot of metal beyond just the blackness at the core of the project, occasionally glazed with gloomy pure heavy-metal or progressive rock. The guy has been in a large number of other bands in the past, and you can tell he doesn't cast any of those aesthetics aside, instead inserting them whenever they flow a track in an interesting direction. There's a real treat, a novelty in listening to a Bloodway album that puts them easily into recommendation territory, especially if you're into eclectic stuff like Blut Aus Nord, Deathspell Omega, Enslaved, or other entrepreneurs in the medium. Never less than impressive, if you're willing to decode the nuances.

Verdict: Win [8.5/10] (a tongue for sonic leaks)

https://www.facebook.com/bloodways

Bloodway - Sunstone Voyager and the Clandestine Horizon (2014)

Thanks to an unhealthy obsession with nearly all that Negură Bunget has released over the years, Romania has long been a scene I've turned to expecting to hear new sounds, fresh spins on stagnant genre tropes which aren't always a bad thing, but generally redundant. To this end, Bloodway's inaugural MCD Sunstone Voyager and the Clandestine Horizon has not let me down. Even just looking at this, with its simple but unusual logo choice, abstract artwork, you've just no idea what it might sound like apart from some potential psychedelic influences, and knowing that its being issued through Italy's I, Voidhanger imprint grants some measure of quality control and reliability. So, it's really no surprise that Bloodway is fascinating, and within 26 minutes had already hooked me through both lips and reeled me on board without much of a struggle.

I saw this categorized as 'dark metal' somewhere, and while this isn't an inaccurate aesthetic identifier, I'd prefer to think of it as alternative black metal which meddles in a few of the fundamental characteristics but sets its own course quite early. Voluptuous, muddy bass lines sway below organic, dissonant guitar riffs that favor a blend of jazzy post-black, post-sludge, post-me-saying-post structures which immediately engrave onto the imagination that this will neither be the most uncomfortable nor comforting listen. They very early on prove they can seamlessly transform between crawling, shadowy grooves and unnerving, horror flick blast beats in "The Skeleton Key", but as with any great record (or horror flick), you can't exactly predict what is to come in the next scene or measure. That's not to say they become so eclectic that they break character, but it's ever a pleasure to hear what the guitars will mete out, and the vocal rasp of Costin Chioreanu has this truly spirit wrenching quality about it which seems to find a medium between Sakis Tolis' passionate bark and Martin van Drunen's visceral ghastliness. Even where Sunstone Voyager... seems at its kindest, there's that constant undercurrent of pain and cruelty.

Drums bounce flawlessly between fragments of rock beats and extreme metal techniques, and really the whole production of this disc is loud and functional like a really excellent jam room performance which can rival most studio wizardry. It's not quite so hazy and psychedelic as I might have thought, nor would I dub this 'progressive' metal, but its adventurous and has a subtle Gothic taint to it which makes the more somber, bass and vocal driven passages just as profound as when the riffs are jamming out. Really, this is something which stands on its own, easily recommended to followers of prog sludge/doom, Greek black metal (Rotting Christ, Necromantia), or other artsy regional acts like Sear Bliss and Negură Bunget. But even that doesn't paint the entire picture of what this sounds like, so you'll just have to hear it for yourself. The material isn't immaculately catchy, but compelling and subduing enough that I've given it a half dozen runs through, and have no intention of stopping there, or missing out on whatever they'll create next. I just hope I don't get tetanus in the meantime from this damn thing in my mouth.

Verdict: Win [8.75/10]

https://www.facebook.com/bloodways

Siculicidium - A rothadó virágok színüket vesztik EP (2012)

Siculicidium is a Romanian act who I've been sadly ignorant of in the past, and this EP is their second release through the Sun & Moon imprint from that same country. Being largely uninformed about most of the goings on in that scene, my first impulse is to compare this material to the earlier output of Negură Bunget; that is to say, traditional raw black metal with grimy rasped vocals but loads of inherent melody and texture. Listening a little deeper reveals that the band has a clear black/punk influence to some of their songs with some ties to Darkthrone or Hellhammer, which provides some contrast to the more atmospheric tracks, and for a shorter release like this, quite a degree of variation.

There's a brighter, folksy interlude in "Várnak a varjak (the crows are waiting)" and an outro with guitars and vocals but no percussion ("Bakarasznyi mumus"), but the rest of the cuts are pretty much pure black metal. "Holnap majd felgyújtom az erdőt (I will burn the forest tomorrow)" is one of the aforementioned tracks influenced by older black metal, a simple sequence of cruel chords grooving out under the hostility of the Romanian vocals, but they throw a curve ball when they arrive at the quiet breakdown with clean guitars that later erupts into hideous laughter. There are also a few rehearsal cuts here, "Halványan az idő ellen (faintly against time)" and "A sajnálat utolsó lehelete (last breath of regret)", the finalized versions of which are present on their 2009 album Utolsó vágta az Univerzumban, so one should expect some contrast in the production levels throughout this release.

Personally, I found the first four songs on the album to represent its better side, especially the driving, anthemic mid pacer "Ökörtej" for its use of the more nasally, droning vocal timbre over the simple structure of the chords; or the opener "Zuhanás (Falling)" which has a leaden, fluid sadness about it that seems more structured and matured than the remainder of the material, thanks in no part to the subtle synth lines stretched beyond the rabid guitars and echoing grit of the vocal progressions. I'm no speaker of the language, but the band's exploration of dark and historical topics is very much in line with the sound of the music, even their very name is drawn from the 18th century slaughter of the Székelys by the Habsburgs.

Whether or not the writing here is good enough to warrant attention really depends on one's desire for honest, oppressive black metal which maintains its core, raw aesthetics and straight lineage from the niche's origins. Siculicidium do not distinguish themselves highly from the wealth of such bands out of Europe, but they do offer some decent ideas and dynamics which round out the driving, diabolic foundations of their music. I wasn't in love with what I heard on this, and there is no argument that it's comprised partly of odds and ends, but it was certainly evil enough that I'll have to make some time for checking out the full-length, because the Romanians are clearly competent for the style.

Verdict: Indifference [6.75/10]

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Siculicidium/294107330600018?sk=info

Magica - Wolves & Witches (2008)

It's no secret that I despise a great deal of the female fronted metal band explosion of past decade, the endless parade of shallow Nightwish clones is both trendy and tasteless. Now, to preemptively silence unfounded cries of 'sexism' , this has NOTHING to do with some belief that female vocals and metal do not go well together. In fact, in many cases, they go together extremely well. I'd love to hear a good female vocalist just as much as any good male vocalist. But it seems after the success of a few bands (Nightwish, Lacuna Coil, etc), thousands more have suddenly sprouted up with the hack female vocals, which might be 'in key', but simply cannot do the supporting music justice (or vice versa). Magica is such a band, and they're not exactly newcomers.

Wolves & Witches (give me a break) is the 4th album from these Romanians, and they seem pre-occupied with romantic horror/fantasy novels or crappy fashionista vampire films like Underworld or Blood & Chocolate which have all the substance of a strip mall manicure. It's possible the entire album is a concept based around a particular novel, film or original story, but I concede that my knowledge of the romance/horror genre is lacking. The music here consists of some straightforward melodic/power metal smothered in Ana's 'angelic' voice, which is sadly very monotone and lacks much expression and power. Frankly, it's fucking annoying, not for the accent, but for the needless layering and the fact that it sounds so separate from the music. She doesn't have the operatic hooks of a Tarja Turunen, but she meanders along with the same dreadful pitch. The lyrics seem to be a smorgasboard of other previous fantasy power metal stereotype lines with a gothic/vampire/werewolf theme, they come across completely goofy and I actually found myself laughing out loud numerous times, take a listen to "Just for Two Coins" for example.

The riffs might not be all that bad under a different set of vocals, but they're not very good of their own accord. These guys can play their instruments. They can shred. But what develops is a very light and feathery, average melodic European power metal. "Chitaroptera", an instrumental, is the most tolerable track I heard here. Actually, it's not just tolerable, it's decent.
But try as I might, I cannot find another silver lining on this album. This is the fairy bubblegum pop metal I can't recommend to anyone outside of people who read Laurell K. Hamilton novels or went to see that movie Twilight and then actually obsessed about how hot those guys were afterwards.

Stick a silver fork in me. I am done.

Verdict: Fail [3/10] (listen to Darkthrone, you can thank me later)

http://www.magicaband.com/magicanetscape.html