Bloodbound – Unholy Cross

site | label | buy

For their fourth full-length release Sweden’s Bloodbound also move on to their fourth singer, Dawn of Silence front-man Patrik Johansson, who takes over from former Tad Morose and current Pyramaze singer Urban Breed. With this new album, after the very successful Tabula Rasa in 2009, Bloodbound have been unable to avoid a very generic power metal sound, spending most of the disc sounding like they’re playing Edguy covers (specifically Moria, The Ones We Left Behind, Together We Fight, and several others). There are moments when this isn’t the case, the grooving, sharp riffs of Drop The Bomb are much less generic for instance, but with Johansson’s vocal style being very similar to Tobias Sammet’s, and the songs they’ve written this time out not offering much in the way of variety or fresh ideas, almost the whole album feels tired and stale. Exceptions are the previously mentioned Drop The Bomb, and power ballad Brothers of War which also sounds like an Edguy song, but this time is a genuinly good song in its own right, rather than a phoned-in effort. Bloodbound could really do with finding some consistency, both in their line-up (which also includes a new bassist, Anders Broman), and their output. Their albums have veered from tired to vibrant and back again too many times already, and their touring is constantly being limited by the personnel changes. If they could find that stability there’s clearly plenty of potential in the band to put together a string of excellent releases, but until then this polarisation is likely to continue.

Written by Andy Lye
More: 2011, Albums, Power Metal, Quick.Play Reviews, Bloodbound