adg211288 The Bloodshed Summoning is the eight full-length album by German power metal act Sacred Steel. It was released in 2013, making it their first album since 2009 when they released Carnage Victory. The album contains twelve tracks by default but there are also some bonus tracks, including a cover of The Misfits’ Dig Up her Bones.

The music on The Bloodshed Summoning is most definitely at the most aggressive end of the power metal genre. Bands like Dragonforce may like to label themselves as ‘extreme power metal’ but anyone who takes that sort of thing seriously obviously hasn’t heard bands like Sacred Steel, who hit you with a hard and heavy barrage of riffs that on this album quite often move out of power metal entirely and into its sister genre of thrash metal. Gerrit P. Mutz’s vocals range from power/thrash metal standards to an aggressive snarling which combined with those riffs tells me right from the off when the band opens with Storm of Fire 1916 that they’re here to give you a right good arse kicking the way only a metal band worth their salt can do.

It’s not all full speed ahead though, the title track showcases a bit of a softer side to the album, and then gradually builds back up into what the band does best, but does feature some more laid back elements compared to what Sacred Steel had pelted your ears with up until that point. It’s still a good song, but it did showcase for me that Gerrit P. Mutz’s softer vocals didn’t leave such a good impression on me as his more direct and aggressive style. Not bad, but an acquired taste to be sure. Fortunately he mostly sticks to his more aggressive approach and with the songs to go with it there’s rarely a moment during the album that doesn’t hold my attention.

The Bloodshed Summoning is a satisfying slab of power-thrash. Not terribly innovative or anything like that, but an album like this didn’t really need to break the mould with fancy frills. It simply needed to achieve its goal, and I hear a resounding success here, with album highlights including The Darkness of Angels and Storm of Fire 1916. A great album tier rating is deserved.

83/100

(Originally written for Heavy Metal Haven (http://metaltube.freeforums.org/sacred-steel-the-bloodshed-summoning-t2805.html))

1967/ 1976 It's not easy to classify the Sacred Steel in a specific sub-genre. Conceptually, at least in this "Wargods of Metal", their 2nd album, can be seen as a version closer to the Power Metal of Manowar. But just because Germans. But this is not correct. At the end I think that Sacred Steel are good in Power Metal field, but only because they work in Power Metal era.

This album is a sort of concept as the same level of Manowar concept. But if you search original music I think that in this album original music is present. Great vocals, great power of a dynamic drummer, great guitars, great emotions and great power. As Power Metal genre requires power and technique are in first plan but the songs are only arranged in Power Metal genre because Omen's "Battle Cry" seems written by them, because that is practically equal to their songs. If I find fault is that when they want to add a little speed metal to their music becomes a little too rock and roll but without the Punk charge that would make sense.

The production and mix enhance a dynamism that is not merely an expression of higher technical, but also of higher writing.

Adept at mixing all sub-genres derived from Traditional Heavy Metal, Sacred Steel can only win our hearts of Defenders of The Faith!

I could write a review song by song. I prefer to have written it so, since this is an album that is heard many times and that the words can not describe.