Review of Blood Freak - Mindscraper

Sometimes, the job of reviewing a record can be both extremely easy and very, very difficult. For example, in the case of Blood Freak, the easy part of reviewing their latest gore-and-viscera-drenched opus, Mindscraper, comes from the fact that the band has made it pretty clear from older records that it really doesn’t care about subtleties like musical evolution, melodic experimentation or expansion of their sound. No, Blood Freak is here to give the listener a quick fix of death/grind brutality and be done with it.

So, if one likes this kind of music, one knows exactly what to expect and that’s exactly what one gets: a whirlwind of chunky, downtuned riffing with a few speedings-up or slowings-down for added moshing value; deep stuck-pig growls interspersed with piercing screams; chaotic song structures, as is the rule with grind, but longer songs, as death metal seems to demand; hyper-fast drumming that alternates between barely groovy death metal parts and blasting sections; and an overall sense of undiluted brutality.

This “formula” is applied pretty much on every song, although Blood Freak seems to have a few wild cards thrown in the mix. These are a few distinctly thrash metal riffs to be found here and there that add a sense of (much needed, in my opinion…) groove to the whole proceedings. Plus, there’s the samples collage from obscure horror movies of the past (and a couple from more upscale films, like “Blade Runner” or “Naked Lunch”) that opens up the record in an eerie and not exactly unsatisfactory way – kinda like a statement of intent. ‘S okay, I guess, and it doesn’t mar the record.

But, there’s also the difficult part of the review, which comes along with the realization that Blood Freak’s death/grind is not this different from what a jillion other bands have already done in this field. Yes, it can be amusing and fun, in its own sick way, but a reinvention of the wheel it’s not. What little individuality is to be found in Mindscraper, can easily be lost inside the chaotic maelstrom of the downtuned, almost atonal riffing and warp-speed drumming. What this means is that, while Blood Freak can easily be a choice band for the aficionados of ultra-brutal death/grind, it will leave the rest of us pretty uninterested, since it seems to lack any real individuality. In one sentence, we’ve already heard it all before…

Release Details

Blood Freak

Mindscraper

Comments

Related