Bloodshot Dawn-Bloodshot Dawn (2012)

A few points of interest before we begin: this album is self-released, and yet is of such high calibre that Terrorizer chose to pick it up as a ‘free’ gift for subscribers. Which, as it happens, is how I come to have it. I normally would not likely buy death metal albums, as they can be largely hit and miss, especially with deathcore being ever more prevalent. However, this album is death through and through, and thus I feel it worthy of a hearing here at STS. That, and they’re a young British band, this being their debut full length.

Metal archives info

Image lifted from their bandcamp (click to hear the album and for information on the band)

I rather like the artwork – there is a Seagravean edge to it, reminding me of Mithra’s behind the shadows lie madness and perhaps Gateways to Annihilation. The Morbus Chron artwork also chimes.

The songs on the album average about 4 minutes in length, and, if I am honest they do blur together a little, but that is more through the seamless production and lack of deviance from the solid melodeath stylings of the album. There is a glorious Emperor-esque intro, and another later intro to the final track. This is far from bog-standard death metal, however – there’s plenty of melody, lots of delightful and flashy guitar work and a superb rhythm section that ties it all together marvellously. There’s real intelligence behind the songwriting, a progressive edge to the arrangements. The delivery and tones may be death metal, but much of the structures are a little more removed. They even employ the odd bass bomb, heaving forth from the speakers like an exclamation mark made out of fists.

The vocal delivery is two-pronged – death rasps from the vocalist, death growls from the drummer. The bassist has great tone and provides some awesome fills at times, and the two guitarists are both virtuosos; there are some superb solos on the album. Sometimes they let the pace slide, gliding into a gentler passage – they let their music breathe, rather than suffocate it beneath blast and overproduction. If anything, a little more dirt under the fingernails could serve them well on the next album – it is all a little crisp and clinical, but that suits the technical mastery on display.

This gem reminds me of an old favourite – Scar Symmetry. The same technicality, the same guitar histrionics, but with more overtly death metal elements and a fuck load more heft going on.

To conclude, while perhaps a little clean and a little lacking in diversity in parts, Bloodshot Dawn are most certainly a band to watch. They have ability and ambition in spades – may they achieve their aims.

4.5/5

*artwork from cmdistro, stylusmagazine.com and lurkerspath. I should also add that the Mithra is awesome ‘programmed’ death metal – take a listen to a track on the ‘tube to understand what I mean.

–

As a final note, here is their music video for their track ‘vision’. No thrills, no fireworks, just 100% delivery, no compromises.