ATROCITY — Blut (review)

Album · 1994 · Gothic Metal

3/5 · 2021-11-20
UMUR

"Blut" is the 3rd full-length studio album by German metal act Atrocity. The album was released through Massacre Records in October 1994. It´s the successor to "Todessehnsucht" from 1992 and features one lineup change since the predecessor as bassist Oliver Klasen has been replaced by Christian Lukhaup. Atrocity formed as far back as 1985 under the Instigators monicker, initially playing grindcore, but by the end of the 80s and with their name change, they began playing death metal, and they should be counted among one of the seminal death metal acts on the German scene. The band´s debut album "Hallucinations (1990)" was a death grinding technical release featuring a clever concept story about sexual abuse, drug addiction, and death, but already on "Todessehnsucht (1992)", Atrocity sounded quite different and as a listener you began to understand that this was a band not even close to being finished developing their sound...

...and the adventurous approach to composing music is indeed continued on "Blut" (which like the debut album is also a concept story. This time the theme is Bram Stoker´s Dracula), which is a completely different beast to it´s predecessor just like "Todessehnsucht (1992)" was a relatively different sounding release to "Hallucinations (1990)". On "Blut", Atrocity have gone all in though, and if I didn´t know any better, I wouldn´t have guessed it was the same band playing as the one who recorded the two predecessors. There´s only one single moment on the entire album, which sounds like anything off the two albums that came before, and that´s the blast beat section on "I'm in Darkness". Other than that "Blut" features a completely new musical direction for Atrocity.

Or...direction is maybe too big a word, when lack of direction is probably a bit more suiting when describing "Blut". All sorts of musical elements and styles are combined (including elements from death, groove metal, industrial, goth, and even neo-folk) and there is not much of a musical flow on the album. At 15 tracks and a full playing time of 64:20 it´s a very long album too, and in this case that´s not necessarily a good thing. The basis of most tracks on the album is a heavy groove laden music style with heavy groove metal oriented riffs and rhythms and Alexander Krull´s shouting raw vocals on top. Most of the time he sounds like an out-of-breath barking dog, and it takes exactly half of the opening track "Trial" before I´m fed up with his vocals. It´s an unfortunate change of vocal style, if you ask me, and I much prefer his aggressive growling vocals on the first two album. One-dimensional, toneless, and tedious aren´t wrong words to describe the man´s vocals on "Blut". There are a few moments when he breaks the monotony and tries something different like on "B.L.U.T.", "Calling the Rain", "Leichenfeier", and "Land Beyond the Forest", but his vocal experiments are few and far between.

The above mentioned tracks are also the highlights of the album (or at least the most standout tracks). Both "Calling the Rain" and "Land Beyond the Forest" features guest vocals by Krull´s sister Yasmin Krull, and her contributions are a nice variation in the vocal department. She is not a typical angelic clean female vocalist, but uses a more middle-eastern influenced vocal style, not completely unlike what you´ll hear on a Dead Can Dance album. Both tracks are neo-folk type compositions featuring acoustic instruments and percussion. "B.L.U.T." is a gothic tinged metal track and "Leichenfeier" is a dark, heavy, and industrial tinged track with spoken vocals on top. Those are the exceptions though on an otherwise rather one-dimensionally groove laden album. It´s not that I´m allergic to groove metal riffs and rhythms, and there are definitely some decent riffs and rhythms featured on "Blut", but most of the tracks just sound so uninspired and tame. Some of them (like "Miss Directed") even come off awkward.

"Blut" is obviously performed by a skilled band and the album features a relatively well sounding production too, so there are redeeming features on the album. To my ears the lack of a musical direction combined with the monotone vocals destroy much though, and the few successful musical adventures on the album can´t save it from the label "failed experiment". "Blut" is a case of experimentation for the sake of it, and a case of sacrificing a musical red thread in exchange for the band´s need to progress. Sometimes an uncompromising attitude like that deserves applause, but that usually requires the experiement to be at least partially successful, which certainly isn´t the case here. A 2.5 - 3 star (55%) rating is warranted.