Mozaíq

I finally listened to the entirety of Mozaiq not too long ago to find that, well, it's actually not that bad. Some may deem this to be Blood Stain Child's worst album, and fair enough, its flaws are incredibly glaring. I haven't listened to the entirety of their first two albums just yet, but Mystic Your Heart does sound pretty good from what I've heard. What Mozaiq does right, it does well enough.

Firstly, a bit of background: Ryo decided to step down from being the vocalist because he wanted to focus on the bass. The result of that is... Well, kinda disappointing. From Idolator onward, Ryo became my favorite vocalist the band had, as well as one of my favorite vocalists overall. Sadew does a good enough job, he actually holds his own pretty well. The main issue I have is that, well, there's really nothing to show for it. Aside from getting to hear the bass in "Pitch Black Room" (And the bass does sound passable, but that's not really a good thing, especially with Ryo's intent on focusing on it), there's really nowhere else that it has any sort of presence. I would've quite liked to hear more creative vocals structure-wise with Sadew and Ryo, similar to how they scratched the surface on The Legend, but deeper than that. Aside from that, Ryu said in an interview that he wanted to go with more of a trance/EDM sound. In fact, at this time, he pretty much wasn't even listening to metal. Such a sentiment is a bit... Well, scary, for an album like this- and honestly, it shows. Mozaiq is the album that really began the identity crisis for Blood Stain Child.

Aside from some riffs which sound amazing, the guitarwork has declined significantly to probably the band's lowest point overall. Guitar solos are less common, being replaced in some songs with keyboard solos, which actually sound great in their own right. The guitarwork's one of Mozaiq's two biggest problems: They just didn't get creative enough with it. There's a 60/40 split between trance and metal, with the metal side getting the short end of the stick, though even Epsilon was more creative with how it interspersed its split, which I'd say leaned more towards trance in spite of adding guitar solos back into the mix. Even still, I think I still prefer Mozaiq as a whole. As for the drums, this is definitely Violator's best work for the band, so at least he went out on a high note. The production and mixing is fine enough, even if the bass is just nonexistent, for the most part. As for the lyrics, well, they've never been Blood Stain Child's strong suit. Not even in Epsilon, so don't kid yourself there. The female vocals, which appear every now and then in the album, sound pretty nice, but they don't really add much to the album.

Yes, I'll address the elephant in the room: The clean vocals are abhorrent. I know some fans may try to justify them as trying to sound futuristic, but they just sound like shit. Sophia and Kiki pulled that off better, and even Saika's cleans, no matter which side of the fence you're on about him, absolutely sounded more futuristic. What is even worse is that Sadew gets the bad rep for them. some clean vocals in "Neo-Gothic Romance", and fuck, do I wish he did the cleans for the rest of the album. He actually did It was actually Ryu who did most of the clean vocals here, and he did some on Idolator as well, albeit they were more towards the back of the mix and just didn't sound nearly as bad. Sadew, very obviously, wasn't on Idolator. What's even worse than the fact that the clean vocals sound way worse in Mozaiq is that fact that they are used pretty damn often. I was able to get used to them in some songs, like "Cyber Green" and "Another Dimension", but dear god do they just ruin everything they touch anyways. They single-handedly bring the score, which doesn't matter, down a whole 10%. They should probably bring the score, which doesn't matter, down way more than that, but I'm overly generous.

Some songs get creative, such as "Freedom" and "Neo-Gothic Romance". Others, such as "Cyber Green" and "Another Dimension" are safer as melodeath, but they sound consistently amazing.

Sadew would leave after this album, and the band would pick up Sophia, who is a great vocalist in her own right. Ryo would also do vocals more on Epsilon, and I'm glad to hear him there. But best of all, Ryu stopped doing vocals for the band altogether after Mozaiq. I love his guitarwork, but his vocals add pretty much nothing to the band, and were only acceptable in Idolator. Mozaiq is definitely an album that I have to be in the mood for, as I simply prefer Ryo's vocals and the more melodeath-focused Idolator. It's pretty much the same feeling I have for Epsilon, only I don't loathe Mozaiq's fans quite as much. However, I have to give it points for having the only good ballads the band has made, as well as being much more consistent than Epsilon (In spite of leaving me much more conflicted about it). I'm just not as huge on trance, EDM, or whatever else as I am on some good old melodeath, and Idolator had the best formula and ratio for me. It's clearly a me thing. I will say, if there's one thing that Blood Stain Child's proved, it's that they can do trance incredibly well. I'd say that if you want a better trance album, trust me, Epsilon is pretty much there for you. If you want a better melodeath album, listen to anything before Mozaiq, as well as Amateras, which is certainly a return to form for the band.

Songs to Recommend: "Cyber Green", "Energy Blast", "Pitch Black Room", "Another Dimension".
Songs to Avoid: "Peacemaker" (It's a remake of "Final Sky" from Idolator, and a shit one at that. It may not be as bad as the one from The Legend, but it's a fucking waste of space. I'd say they should stop trying to remake it because the original's the only good version, but I'd love to hear a studio version of "Final Sky" with Sadew.)

Blood Stain Child plays electro/trance death metal and their sound has changed over the years to more electro/industrial-oriented metal. Still Blood Stain Child is one of my favorite bands and this is definitely their best album. On previous albums, they added electronic music little by little to melodic death metal and it was great, but here it is a complete pattern. Their most known song, "Freedom", fuses everything I love together. Sadew's vocals work is really nice, however it is not best that there is, but better than Ryo's earlier work. I have to admit that Ryo's vocals are superior on their latest album, "εpsilon", but the music is a lot better here. The male vocals fit perfectly and there are so many death metal elements and trance/electro that it works perfectly. Personally, I feel that this album brings the best parts from metal and from electro together and takes it one step further than other bands.

Blast beat drums kick ass and give that death metal element to kick songs further. Guitar riffs are comprehensive and melodic solos make the synths and guitars work in great harmony. "Pitch Black Room" is one song with a lot of traditional melodic death metal elements and the song is not so electro-based, but it works really well and brings to mind bands like In Flames.

"Neo-Gothic-Romance" is another point of interest here since it is a very unique song with strong patterns and powerful atmosphere. Overall, this album contains lot of awesome riffs and melodic electro-synths. I would have loved it if they had continued this pattern, but unfortunately I know that on their newer release they have changed so much that I don't enjoy their music as much anymore, but this album will be forever my favorite and I really hope they do something like this again.

The only minus here actually is the artwork. It is boring and uninspired and generally dull. In my final words, I would recommend this to every industrial/electro metal fan to buy it!

I'm not really familiar with this band, but a friend of mine told me i should check this out because 'it sounds like In Flames'. Man, i should've asked him if it sounded like older IF or one of their newer cd-shaped pieces of dung. Well, it was the latter.

First, the vocals REALLY sound like a lower-pitched version of the ever-sucking Anders Friden, which doesn't make that much of a difference for me because their tone and screaming 'technique' is the same and it sucks badly, as you probably already know. Also, sometimes this dude attempts some clean singing, and once again it’s pretty close to Friden's quality (or lack thereof) sans the psychotic multi-tracking. 'Neo Gothic Romance' features the man ripping off Mikael Stanne’s clean style and it doesn’t stink as much as his Friden impersonation, though.

The guitars just play some Gothenburg riffs, schizophrenic little solos and if i can remember correctly, there are precisely two tremolo picked sections buried somewhere. Anyway, almost nothing is special about it. Oh, the bass is inaudible and the drumming is pretty predictable/dull.

Probably, the only attention-grabbing element of this train wreck is the guy behind the keyboards. In every damn song he throws in some completely random techno bridges that do not make sense at all, but there are other moments on which he plays simple but tasteful piano melodies, such as on "Another Dimension" (at the 1:55 mark), and it's quite good.

The atmosphere is almost universally upbeat with some spacey elements. "Metropolice" features a different, slightly more esoteric theme, and such is repeated briefly on 'C.E. 0079', but that's about it.

This whole thing is unmemorable, boring and way too full of electronic bullshit for its own good. Avoid this third rate Gothentechno abortion.

Highlights: Nothing.

2005's Idolator triggered a massive paradigm shift in the universe of Blood Stain Child. While it wasn't necessarily very obvious on that album, the group's melodic death disposition started to decay in favor of the trance and electronics. As a result, fans weren't necessarily privy to the magnitude of the tone shift until Mozaíq dropped two years later. Not only is the music itself totally disparate, regular male cleans make their presence felt in virtually every song, instantly alienating this material from any of Blood Stain Child's earlier work.

Mozaíq is dealt a bad hand from the start, as it features an unappealing ratio of metal to trance/electronica. In contrast, 2011's εpsilon completely tore down the walls separating the genres, allowing the electronics to fully take hold at times. The result was the band's best album in a decade. Mozaíq, on the other hand, lacks the compositional elegance on the electronic end to pull off a similar coup, so it is left relying on half-hearted melodic death passages armed with a riff set that pales in comparison to Mystic Your Heart or the band's debut. It definitely doesn't help that the guitars are sonically inert, featuring virtually no crunch or substance; just a weak, dispirited chug. The production as a whole is unappealing for music this busy as well. Violator's swansong performance on the kit is technically solid, but sounds pacified as all hell courtesy of Tue Madsen's officious mix.

Ryo's dessicated scream is functional enough here, and it is hardly offensive. Mozaíq's biggest flaw is actually the inclusion of Sadew's clean vocals. He serves a role similar to Sophia on εpsilon, but the performance is just not up to par here. I'm not sure if it was a technical decision by the band to drown the cleans in effects, or if it this was done to mask a shaky performance. The bottom line is that the clean vocals are nasal, effect-drenched, and sound so atonal it is laughter inducing. Sadew sounds like an amalgamation of all of the worst vocal qualities of Reroute to Remain-era Anders Fridén, but with only half the balls.

Aki isn't so much a keyboardist as he is a programmer at this point in Blood Stain Child's career. He has the proclivity to layer some brilliant eurobeat-style backings that results in at least a few catchy tracks, so long as the clean vocals aren't too prominent. Opener "Exotic-6-Cordinator" and "Freedom" are both the best examples of the style being pioneered here. "C.E. 0079 " is also worth noting, existing as the spiritual successor to "Nuclear Trance" from Idolator. Regardless, as the album passes the halfway point it tries throwing some emotive curveballs such as "Metropolice" and "Neo-Gothic-Romance", which all end up falling flat due to the lack of convincing clean vocals.

However you look at it, Mozaíq is clearly not Blood Stain Child's finest hour. I was also not very fond of Idolator, which showed plenty of thin points at the seams regarding riffs and songwriting. I like to think of this album as a "cleansing" of sorts, in which the band purged their demons and prepped for the far superior εpsilon four years later. As it still stands today, this is easily Blood Stain Child's worst album.

(Revised/Updated 1/9/14)

Now I love BSC. They are probably in my top 10 favorite death metal bands, but their newest release, Mozaiq, is fairly disappointing. On their previous album, Idolator, they took death/power metal and added SOME trance elements to give a fresh sound to the stale melo-death genre. On this album they choose to have a trance album with some death/power metal mixed in. There is just too much damn trance in this album! It completely overshadows the actual band, making this feel less metal than anything they have previously released.

Another big problem with this album is the vocals. Replacing Ryo with Sadew may have been a poor decision because they scream in the exact same way, but Sadew tries to actually "sing" here, and dear God it sounds like a cat getting shot repeatedly. He is absolutely terrible at singing and when he decides to just talk (instead of screaming/singing) it is almost as bad because it slows the entire song down along with sounding like he stuck the microphone down his throat while he is talking.

The band plays well, not being too generic but also failing to bring anything new to the table. This problem plagues many bands in the melo-death genre so I won't hold it against them that much and at least they have some nice synths in the music!

Production is done well enough and Tue Madsen does enough to justify being chosen by these up-and-comers. You can hear most of the instruments and the vocals aren't buried too deep in the music.

Final thoughts on this album-pretty good, but too much trance and hit-or-miss vocals bring down the score