Resurrection Through Carnage

When it comes to Bloodbath, most seem to praise "Nightmares Made Flesh" more than anything else. My personal favorite, however, has always been (and will remain) the band's debut. While not being revolutionary in terms of its riffs or vocal style, it's certainly one of the most memorable death metal albums in terms of the sound, and it remains one of my favorite works in the genre.

The opening track, possessing an OK riff and a rather conventional solo instantly plunges at you with an illegally thick guitar tone, which is insanely brutal and remarkable. Unlike some deathcore bands that try to make everything as low-tuned and thick as possible and ending up sounding generic and bland, "Resurrection Through Carnage" does a great job at creating a heavy and distinctive guitar sound. The clean drumming, mostly offering casual death metal blast beats fits it perfectly, and so do Åkerfeldt's hoarse vocals. Although I'm not a fan of Opeth and his signing on their most famous songs, here he is merely impeccable. His voice sounds like evil in its purest form. The backing vocals, accompanying Åkerfeldt's infernal singing are also very solid, adding to the album's wicked atmosphere.

As for the riffs, they vary between excellent and fine. Ironically, I'm not a fan of the album's main "hits" ("So You Die" and "Like Fire"), but some of the less famous tracks ("Buried by the Dead", "Trail of Insects") offer some of the most vicious riffs I have ever heard. Not all songs are mindless terror in your face, "Death Delirium" and "The Soulcollector" have a rather mysterious and even creepy mood as well as awesome breakdowns. The best song is undoubtedly the closing track, "Cry My Name". Besides having a sick riff and the feeling of beholding the world collapse in madness, it is overall very consistent and changes from one epic part to another (the melody following the second repetition of the chorus is as cool as the main riff, for instance).

The lyrics are mostly satisfying, although simple. Some songs are weaker than others in this sense, but what remains consistent throughout the album is how memorable certain lines are. Most songs are chorus-orientated, which means you will most likely want to sing "VERMIN INSIDE YOU, CONTROL YOU, DEVOUR YOU" and "AND FOR ALL ETERNITY YOU WILL CRY MY NAME" along with Mike.

So, this album is a true bloodbath. The malicious guitar sound combining with the inhumane vocals and powerful headbangable riffs (particularly on "Buried by the Dead", "Bathe in Blood" and "Cry My Name") create a brutal, atmospheric sound that I never get tired of coming back to. And, while I enjoy later Bloodbath's works, too, especially "The Fathomless Mastery", nothing can compete with the grinding might of "Resurrection Through Carnage".

You know how it is with these supergroups. They are often approached ambivalently, with a great distance. Usually, the shocking amount of known names that accompanies them, unfortunately (or fortunately), does not translate into anything spectacular, you can only feel in all this an intense pressure for money and a desire to create a "great" product with little effort. However, it was completely different with the Swedish Bloodbath, which was conceived in 1998 by Nyström, Åkerfeldt, Renkse and Swanö, releasing a very promising ep "Breeding Death" at the very beginning of the new millennium and two years later the class-confirmed debut album "Resurrection Through Carnage".

It was definitely not the only album that restored the interest in death metal at the time, but it must be admitted that it refreshed the old school of Swedish death metal in great style. This album showed that from patterns like Entombed, Carnage or Dismember you could make a lot and create...something completely fresh! It was enough for them to exceed some of the already known standards and to balance it on the same level with brutality and catchiness ("Cry My Name" and "The Soulcollector" are the best examples). It's also puzzling that such cool material came from the guys who in their "main" bands were increasingly departing from death metal. Against the background of Katatonia or Opeth discs, which are more and more saturated with progressive metal, the debut of Bloodbath is a very nice change, showing that then the quartet was able to create something equally ambitious and thrilling from something simpler.

First of all, on "Resurrection Through Carnage" you can hear the joy of playing and having fun creating death metal. Actually every track from this release can be liked, all of them are remembered quite quickly. I am most convinced by this list of "Buried By The Dead", "Ways To The Grave", "Trail Of Insects", "Death Delirium" and "So You Die", although it's not an easy choice, each of the mentioned (and not listed) here are good. From the technical side, the disc also looks quite impressive, the guitars "crunch" as needed, Mikael Åkerfeldt growls much lower than in Opeth, the solos add melody and greater variety to the music and the quite sterile drums means that the band does not fall into an exaggerated old school (only the sound of the snare drum leaves a lot to be desired).

In the case of "Resurrection Through Carnage" it can therefore be said that the hype on Bloodbath was fully deserved. The disc contains a lot of inspiration from older Swedish music from the early nineties, but also a lot of ideas that perfectly show how to approach such playing fresh. Even the orthodox should be pleased!

Originally on: https://subiektywnymetal.blogspot.com/2020/03/bloodbath-resurrection-through-carnage.html

Frankly speaking, the whole idea for the so called super projects, read: temporary bands, formed by so well known musicians and usually directed by major record labels, is something what I mostly despise. It’s where the artificial music business and cash talks, not the real needs, interests, passions and desires – at least in many cases it is like that. And maybe with Bloodbath it was the same in the beginnings, who knows… I am not the one to judge it. But the reality is that this once side project turned into a real band, with real albums, real music, real gigs, not something temporary and onetime thing. And more so, unlike many side projects, Bloodbath proved to have certain high quality in most of the recordings they did and so, it’s not an unworthy shit. They started with killer “Breeding Death” EP and then this crushing death metal masterpiece came out – “Resurrection Through Carnage”, a classic old styled Swedish death metal beast! Moaning and bitching aside, this is just bloody good album, sounding like some of the early 90’s masterpieces. It is almost surprising that something like this came from the people involved in Katatonia. Sure, they’re experienced musicians, who not only played soft melancholic rock in their lives… but it’s so different from what they usually play… and at the same time this music sounds natural, like they really did have death metal floating in their veins. Good!

The whole secret behind “Resurrection Through Carnage” is simple as it can only be; they composed a bunch of great songs, came up with killer riffs, some catchy, straight to the point rhythms, proper feeling, had simple, but awesome ideas and good vocalist … More so, they kind of blended the classic Swedish death metal style (similar to some Grave, Unleashed, early Hypocrisy and Entombed) with some ingredients from the old US legends such as Autopsy or very early Death…There’s no special philosophy or fuckin mathematics, just pure, straight forward, no bullshit death metal and it just clicked perfectly with such songs like “Like Fire”, “Ways to the Grave”, “So You Die”, “Mass Strangulation”. Each song is damn memorable and force the headbanging and it’s also good to scream some of the lyrics (by the way, Mikael Akerfeldt did a better job here than I would expect! He really has this old vibe in his growling!). The music is also soaked with the properly created gory, bloody horror atmosphere… So, there’s nothing missing here, just great, high quality old school death metal. It’s nothing original, nothing sophisticated (let’s leave that to Opeth hehe), but it delivers everything what we all enjoy in the traditional death metal sounds. And more so, it turned out 666times better than majority of few albums from bands I mentioned above, like Unleashed for example, who’re the dullest of all. So, super group or super bullshit, no matter what the real intentions behind “Resurrection Through Carnage” were, I still think it is an awesome death metal record and to this day it’s also Bloodbath’s best piece in my opinion.

Standout tracks: “Like Fire”, “Ways to the Grave”, “So You Die”, “Mass Strangulation”
Final rate: 80/100

There are recipes for success and then there are recipes for success. Combine the talents of Jonas Renkse (Katatonia, October Tide), Blakkheim (Katatonia, Diabolical Masquerade), Mikael Akerfeldt (Opeth), and Dan Swanö (Edge of Sanity and a few hundred other bands) into a loving tribute to their death metal roots, then profit. The Breeding Death EP from 2000 was a nice teaser, but fortunately the band saw fit to record all new material for this full-length debut, which for a while, remained my favorite of this project's albums, though pretty recently I've come to the conclusion that its successors have indeed surpassed it.

Bloodbath were not out to win any awards for innovation, but to strip away the complexity of their current projects and have a good time writing what comes natural, old school Swedish death with the crunch on overdrive. That the songs are this polished is a testament to the compositional and production skills of its membership, but I wouldn't necessarily consider this a classic for the genre (and I think other retro Swedish death bands, like several of Rogga's projects, are superior).

The album begins with a nice fade in to "Ways to the Grave", a crushy blow to the skull with a nice creepy riff after the midpoint. "So You Die" begins with a tearing lead over a thick rhythm, then splitting off into some groovier segments. "Mass Strangulation" has a great, wailing atmosphere during its breakdown which is one of the more kickass moments on the album. "Death Delirium" is a fine track, highly reminiscent of old Entombed. I'll be honest, almost the entire album sounds like a sequel to Clandestine. But that's not a bad thing. Other standout tracks here include "The Soulcollector", the riffy "Bathe in Blood" and the brutal "Like Fire". It's good to hear Nystrom performing in a different style than his usual gothic/doom leanings, and Akerfeldt sounds absolutely intense in his vocals here, easily the rival of any of his Opeth growls.

Resurrection Through Carnage succeeds at its goal, and it's always great to hear a group of veterans put something like this together. The effort is sincere and should not only appease fans of the early Swedish bands, but perhaps even drag some fans of the members' newer works into the style. The day some Opeth scenester kids come up to me at the mall and tell me they've been listening to Dismember or Paganizer will be the day I can die happy.

-autothrall
http://www.fromthedustreturned.com

Back in 2002, I was what the average joe with an IQ breaching 100 might consider a "starchy cuntbag". I made bold, platitudinous claims and memorized unengaging factoids about bands I enjoyed in order to achieve a trivial "wackiness" amongst my circle of friends. You know, like a run-of-the-mill sitcom's token off-colour supporting character who was written in to contrast the protagonist and bring out qualities in him that would otherwise remain dormant. It's fucking sad when you're not the star of your own life, and needless to say, I could've used a good fuck.

Nearly 7 years later, I've pretty much dropped all the aforementioned "qualities" and taken my place as a relatively credible example of a human being (ie testicular descent, dispelled tooth fairy beliefs, no longer believe Mortician is the "heaviest band ever"... etc.), albeit I still could use a good fuck, but hey, this review is about Sweden's Bloodbath, not my panty peeling skills. When I first picked this album up, the term "super group" was actually a reason to believe the package contained good things. Being only ankle deep in the scene at the time, the album enjoyed many spins in my decrepit walkman until Nightmares Made Flesh surfaced, and the band's appeal faded in light of my obsession with goregrind.

Regardless of what anyone may tell you, Bloodbath is not a "supergroup". Most notably, it's composed of members of Katatonia and Opeth's Mike Akerfeldt; while Opeth has a rabid fanbase in the US, who the fuck cares about Katatonia in this day and age? The last time I heard Katatonia, they were playing whiny alternative rock with gothic overtones... Is Dan Swano really as mystifying and alluring as everyone thinks he is? Because I could count the number of bands Danny-boy HASN'T contributed to on one hand.

Ways To The Grave kicks in, and unsuprisingly, after listening to Swedish death metal champions Grave, Dismember, and Entombed heavily since this album's release, it comes across as predictable and thin despite the midrange being turned up to the point where the guitars sound like warbly towers of moist shit shivering in the wind. Not a good sign. So You Die is a fairly catchy number, but it sounds so close to Grave's early output I find myself gurgling "So where is your light and life after death? It's into the grave!
Eternal rest!" under my breath during the bridges. Mass Strangulation is really poorly written, and the clarity of Akerfeldt's ridiculously cheesy lyrics begins to wear heavily on the album's listenability from this point onward.

The rest of the album shambles along with a few decent riffs and a veritable buffet of deja entendu-inducing moments, but the songwriting is sub-standard at best, with a lot of chorus-centered songs and a two scoops of melodies as shriveled as this reference alludes to. This band is a tribute to the glory days of Sweden's death metal movement, and really, that's all there is to it. Most of the legends Bloodbath's homage goes to are still active, and worse yet for this group, still producing quality material. Unless you're aching for a Swede-death training bra, do yourself a favour and pick up the most recent Sinister, Dismember, and hell, even Unleashed's last album is a doozie.

As you probably already know, Bloodbath is one of those side project albums that Mikael Åkerfeldt and Dan Swanö love beginning and never follow through with. Like all of these things that they've done, it's enjoyable on it's own merits, but also displays promise that hasn't been fulfilled. Luckily, even after Åkerfeldt left, this band managed to continue and realise it's promise. But that is another album, this one still reeks of fun-side-project-with-no-future, and for that reason does show slackness in achiveing it's goal of bringing back Old School Swedish Death Metal. Leading to a bunch of pretty unoriginal riffs all over the place. It must be noted that this album only exists because of the positive response to the far superior "Breeding Death EP", and demands for a full album. This band was never meant to go beyond that EP.

Now, despite this not-fully devoted approach to the music, lack of the songs off the EP, and theft of Grave and Dismember riffs, this still is an enjoyable album.

It is very ugly sounding, obviously a goal of the band, because no one could ever get this guitar tone by accident. It's ugly, and not punchy, ala a lot of modern Death, instead kind of weird sounding and unsettling, it's just got an Old School feel to it. The vocals are distinguishable, and again sound like they would fit on a Grave album. The drums are fairly free of blasts, and the only modern aspect remaining is use of triggers on the bass drums. The album just sounds like it would have fitted in fine with the early 90's Death Metal movement.

Although this album has some catchy, memorable sections when things slow down a bit and let the guitar tone show it's true ugliest form, Resurrection Through Carnage does start to get a little boring a few songs in, and start to sound the same. Luckily, keeping with it's Old School theme, it limits it's length to only 40 minutes, which is a little long, but nothing too bad.

The main problem with the length is that most of the verses sound pretty similar, with only the choruses sticking out. Some songs like "Death Delirium" do seem as if they have been written completely and have all aspects working towards a certain goal, but unfortunately, most of the others seem to have great choruses thrown into the same old verse riff, the drums are a major cause of this because they are definitely over simplified.

The band sounds very solid and comfortable with what they're playing, all the transitions sound smooth, and the riffs are good, but they're basically Grave riffs, so what can you expect. The drumming is solid, and perfectly fits the Swedish death mould, and doesn't try to overpower, which is always nice to hear in a Death Metal band. The vocals are of an exceptional quality, but there is a problem (depending on your viewpoint, I like my melody, so I think it's a plus), Mikael is a very naturally melodic musician, and tends to write his lyrics and vocal patterns in a manner which fits the music very neatly. Meaning that the vocals are too well placed for some people.

Let's face it, Mikael Åkerfeldt needs to quit Opeth and stick with one of these side projects. Everything after My Arms Your Hearse has really sounded tired and uninspired. However all his screw around side projects have been masterful. Look at the one song that Sorskorgen put out, that was better than anything on Damnation, it was passionate. Hell, Steel was good considering it was a joke band. Mikeal has always had a good growl for Opeth, although a little watered down, but a complete unleashing of death metal wouldn't suit the band. Here it does, and he delivers, perfectly. He just sounds great, proving that he is an amazing death vocalist, even in the more brutal realms. In fact, it's amazing that the band managed to actually find a better vocalist for the follow-up album after Åkerfeldts departure.

You can see from the score of 78% that this album is quality enough for a listen, the only problem is you have heard it before. It's not even that you've heard it that much better, it's just that it sticks a little too close to the template, just a little easier to digest due to Åkerfeldt's natural melody that comes through in his vocal lines. It's worth purchasing if you see it for a decent price, or packed with the Breeding Death EP, that completely makes up the rest of the cost.

Harkening back to the glory days of Swedish Death Metal, before the concept of death metal from Sweden was obscured by the over abundance of melodic death, Bloodbath really grabs the styles of early Entombed, Grave, Dismember, and Carnage. First off, Bloodbath is not original, but that is not their goal. They are trying to recapture the raw energy of early Swedish Death Metal, and they really do it. “Resurrection Through Carnage” really strikes me as a cross between Into the Grave era Grave and Carnage’s Dark Recollections.
I occasionally like to joke about how Bloodbath has released the best Grave album in years. Even though they really do have a serious Grave edge to it the song writing on this album supercedes anything the aforementioned has released in years. The riffs are simple, i.e. memorable, the bass lines though not stand out are right where they need to be for this style, the drumming isn’t technical by any means, but much like the bass lines seems to fit in as it should, and the vocals are extremely guttural yet clear enough to understand.

There isn’t a bad track on this album. On a few tracks they definitely manage to make me laugh. The intro to “Death Delerium” sounds somewhat like the Batman theme from Tim Burton movies, and there are times when Akerfeldt’s (Opeth) vocals aren’t quite pronounced so clearly and some words may just sound like other words (for instance, “I am eternal” sounds like “I am a turtle” in “Like Fire”). Overall this album is memorable and I think is an essential album for all old school Swedish death fans. Bloodbath has created a believer out of me and turned me on to the old school bands they are emulating by destroying much of those bands libraries. With “Resurrection Through Carnage” real Swedish death metal is “resurrected.”

Bloodbath. A few musicians from very well known and respected names in the metal scene got together and decided to make an oldschool death metal album. The result...... Ok, I guess. But seriously, Both Edge Of Sanity (etc etc Mr. Swanö) and Opeth are a million times better than this. Forget about Katatonia, they are boring anyway.

The guitar tone sounds.... Horrible, but fits in really well actually. The bass is lost in there somewhere. The drums are oversimplified. The vocals.... Mikaels style of death growls really doesn't fit the music all that well. Also, what the hell is with that scream at the start of "Ways To The Grave"? Listen to the "The Moor" by Opeth if you want a much better scream by Åkerfeldt. Also the songs are quite repetitive at time. Despite having quite a few flaws, this album really isn't bad. Catchy vocal and guitar lines are all over the place, and songs like "Ways To The Grave" and "Cry My Name" are damn fun to try and growl along to.

As much as I would like to base my rating on the quality of this CD alone, I simply can't. The scene is simply swarming with death metal albums better than this one. And that pulls down Resurrection Through Carnage down from a descent 78-80 or so to this.

What do you get when you take 4 great musicians and mix them together with some swedish oldschool death metal, a guitarsound that would make Dismember cry and a vocalist that in my opinion has the best growls there is? A BLOODBATH of course!!!
I started to hear about Bloodbath while hanging on the Opeth forum a while ago but I didn´t have the chance to listen to them until they released their previews on the homepage. After that it was clear! This album is a hit, gotta have it!!!

The first that strikes me when listen to Bloodbath "Resurrection Through Carnage" is the awful sound of the guitars! It´s absolutely dreadful. I wouldn´t play with that guitar sound if I got paid to do it! BUT!!! It fits the music soooo good!!! The oldschool riffing reminds me alot of Dismember and Hypocrisy while it sometimes takes other directions that shows the greatness of these guys! Just listen to the marvelous track "Cry my name" and you´ll see what I mean. The vocals of Åkerfeldt in a class of itself! I´m not sure there IS a better growler around!!! The drums of Swanö are good and its sound are great! Love ém!!! The guys of Katatonia (Anders and Jonas) do their work with pride. I really like the riffing alot! I get goosebumps everytime I listen to the riffing of "Mass strangulation" for an example. The riffing sometimes reminds me of the superb group Edgy of sanity (around the "Purgatory Afterglow" era).

This is an album for every lover of swedish oldschool Death Metal!!

What do you get when you mix Dismember riffs with Hypocrisy production? Bloodbath. A death metal supergroup of sorts, these guys pay homage to their heroes with a modern sonic twist and the results are brutal. This is the sonic equivalent of being beaten over the head with a sledgehammer until the contents splatter all over the asphalt. THIS is death metal baby

A self described throwback band, they come across as a breath of fresh air in today's "sicker than thou" scene. Who the fuck DOESN'T dig shit like Clandestine and Like an Everflowing Stream? Songs like (my fav) So You Die, Mass Strangulation and Cry My Name are heavy as shit death metal anthems you can make an ass out of yourself at a busy intersection to. There's some sort of catchy vocal line during every chorus to growl along with. Shit like Like Fire slows the pace a little... but after all a slow death is more painful than a quick one, and this album rules.

Mike Akerfeldt of Opeth holds forth on vocals, definitely cool, although a LG Petrov bark would probably suit this music better. "Death metal" and "fun" don't typically fit in the same sentence, but Bloodbath do it with class.