Blood of the Gods - The Shadow Before

The Shadow Before is the debut album from Blood of the Gods, a promising young upstart death metal band from Massachusetts; an area of the country not exactly known for producing a ton of high-quality traditional death metal.  Thankfully, with their impressive effort, Blood of the Gods is doing more than their part to represent their state honorably and hopefully will help to salvage its reputation as a bit of a metalcore factory.

Right from the start, the influence of the classic Swedish scene of the early 90s is in evidence.  The guitars sport a nice, Sunlight-style buzz and the tempos never quite attempt more than a bludgeoning, burly gallop.  The effect is further enhanced by a professional sounding, yet non-sterile, grimy production job.  Early material (pre-Soulless) by Swedish stalwarts Grave is a good comparison on tracks like “Dawn of Blood” and “The Dead Will Walk” wherein the hulking riffs seem to slog through the murk, dragging a charred corpse, and a good deal of early Dismember can be heard in much of the vocal presentation.  “Doomed We Remain” and “Haunted Legacy” surprise with some adept if fleeting mid-tempo Bolt Thrower-isms.  The result is a wholly enjoyable, if somewhat derivative death metal experience.  If, like me, you enjoy the classic death metal of the ancients to an extent that you don’t mind hearing the themes and sounds repeated by successive waves of newer bands, then this will be a pleasing listen.  For the band, surviving and succeeding in a field as crowded as the throwback death metal pool is at present might prove to be quite a task, but Blood of the Gods definitely have some strong material so I’d give them some better than average odds.

Release Date: September 28, 2010
Label: Obscenity Cult /
Buried In Hell Records

TRACK LISTING

1.  Earthborne
2.  The Dead Will Walk
3.  Doomed We Remain
4.  Dethroned
5.  Haunted Legacy
6.  In the Den of the Lion
7.  Dawn of Blood
8.  Cloak of Sorrow

Total playing time:  38:48

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*Comments:

Reviewer: J. A. Burt

February 16, 2011