After six years, Bloodbath has re-emerged from the depths of hell to bring their legion of fans new music! Fronting the band for the first time will be Paradise Lost's Nick Holmes, who is taking the place of the now long-time departed Opeth vocalist Mikael Åkerfeldt. You can check out Holmes' performance right here from a single off the band's upcoming Grand Morbid Funeral record out November 17.
In an interview with Queen of Steel, guitarist for the group Per "Sodomizer" Eriksson (Katatonia) explained as he has before that the new record will be pretty lo-fi and harkens back to the classic crusty death metal sounds of the 1980s. Eriksson says the new album isn't for everyone though.
"I think a lot of bands have proven it’s possible to reach out into any or all of those branches and still represent death metal. It just depends what you’re after and where your heart is at. I enjoy Morbid Angel just as much as I enjoy Entombed and they’re so different. There can be both equal dozes of speed and heaviness in my opinion, but when it comes to the melodic aspect, I prefer my death metal eerie and/or sorrowful, when melodies become too 'harmonic' and cheesy you’re killing the darkness in death metal. I think Bloodbath blends the above very delicately, but contemporary 'core' metal fans and purists of melodeath are not gonna enjoy this new album. That’s for sure, but maybe their dads will?"
I'm not sure it's the music people are averse to so much as it is the vocals, but maybe that's just me. Keep in mind all we've heard is one song, and Eriksson does mention in the interview that the album will be extremely varied. So who knows what other wonders Grand Morbid Funeral may hold? He also mentions the band has no plans to go back to what they've done in the past, which may be disappointing to fans just as much as it may be exciting. I guess it depends on how you feel about the group's older works.
"Already 6 years ago, right after the release of The Fathomless Mastery we already knew back then that the next album wasn’t going to merit logical expectations and be a natural follow-up. We were really happy with the album (still are!) but felt Bloodbath was 100% done with that style, so we discussed how we wanted to step away from overdoing things, stop editing things, stop using triggers, get rid of the modern approach in riffs and beats and put the american techy influences to a minimum. When we had our vision clear to us we took a 180 degree turn back into the first days of death metal but to explore fully this time, way more so than in the past and thus we knew we needed a different vocal approach. At the same time Mike wasn’t excited about playing death metal anymore so he bailed and we announced his departure. We then started looking around for a replacement and came up with a couple of names, based on their style and history of extreme metal. We discussed and even negotiated with a couple of candidates, but most of them fell off the wagon for various reasons, everyone except one, Nick! And the rest is now history…"
One of the last things Eriksson says in the interview is the album will be "evil, dark and rotten." So here's hoping!
