BLOOD CEREMONY — The Eldritch Dark (review)

BLOOD CEREMONY — The Eldritch Dark album cover Album · 2013 · Heavy Psych Buy this album from MMA partners
5/5 ·
adg211288
The Eldritch Dark (2013) is the third full-length album by Canadian retro rock/metal act Blood Ceremony. This is their first release with new drummer Michael Carrillo. Always a band to have divided opinion on what it is they actually play, no doubt because they sound like they hopped in a time machine from the sixties/seventies and started releasing albums from 2008 onwards. The Eldritch Dark further complicates the classification matter by changing the measures of all the different things going into their cauldron.

I haven't heard their debut self-titled album (2008) but compared to prior effort Living with the Ancients (2011) things are a bit less metal orientated. It may not seem that way at first, The Eldritch Dark is very much recognisable as the work of the same band, but start to dig deep and it quickly becomes apparent that although some may still wish to consider it such, The Eldritch Dark isn't really a doom metal album. Those elements have been stripped back and it really is difficult to fit this album into any metal genre even though their past work is often considered to belong to it. It's still pretty heavy stuff at times but it's more of a hard rock sort of heavy, combined with all the psychedelic, progressive, and folk elements heard in prior work to result in something which is overall best called a heavy psych album. The vibe seems the same between albums, which is definitely a good thing, but the road taken to get there has some different turns in it.

Differences in the overall sound compared to its predecessor aside the quality displayed is of the same high level that Living with the Ancients made me expect from a Blood Ceremony album and even goes one better. The songs take their turns through all the band's different aspects from the rocky, to the folksy and onto the proggy. An early highlight is lead promo track Goodbye Gemini, which is directly followed by the folk ballad Lord Summerisle, in which singer Alia O'Brien is joined on lead vocals by bassist Lucas Gadke. I love Alia's singing but there's some definite chemistry between their two voices so I'd like to hear Lucas singing more in the band. Alia arguably remains the star of this show though providing not just the bulk of the vocals but also the flute and organ, which coupled with Sean Kennedy’s riffs make the Blood Ceremony sound something special.

It takes a great effort to follow an already excellent album with one that is even better, but that's exactly what Blood Ceremony has done with The Eldritch Dark. Retro they may be, but they've more than earned their place as one of the most relevant acts on the scene right now. This is quite the addictive album that's sure to find a place in the collections of rock/metal fans of all ages.

95/100

(Originally written for Heavy Metal Haven: http://metaltube.freeforums.org/blood-ceremony-the-eldritch-dark-t3228.html)
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