By John Bedard
In every industry, many buzzwords are used to draw people to a product. Back when I was doing IT, it was things like synergy or convergence or blockchain or other similar things. This is also true about music and ones that pretty much always work on me are things like double-edged, aggressive, and melodic. I will pick up pretty much any album based on these buzzwords. I know, I should probably put more thought into it than that but so far it has worked out. So, when I saw the press kit for Tainted Blood I knew I needed to see if they deliver. They most certainly do!
I absolutely love when a track has such an obvious evolution. Most tracks have a soft intro leading to a heavier tone as the track goes on. Sure this is not something that is all that uncommon but it is still one of my favorite ways that a track draws you in. But there is more than that as well. Within this evolution from the softer to the heavy, there are hints back and forth within the tracks. Heavy guitars are contrasted with the gentle notes of a piano which always wins points with me. This gives the music a wonderful evolution and that does not stop at the instrumentation.
Vocally, we have a very similar story. There is this contrast between heavy screamed vocals and a more traditionally sung tone going back and forth in every track that leaves nothing to be desired. It is like Daze of June was handed a list of things to do to make me like an album. Between the music and the vocals, there are so many layers to every track making the whole album feel very substantial. It never gets old. I have said this in many reviews but it applies here as well. The whole album feels like it is going somewhere. As each track goes on it never feels like it is repetitive. Much like how a movie has a beginning, middle, and end so does this whole experience making everything feel very satisfying and complete.
So, if you can’t tell by now, yes you should pick this one up. As promised it is a double-edged sword of the aggressive combined with the melodic which creates a wonderful evolution across the whole experience. How is that for buzzwords? I only stole half of them from the press kit. It does not matter though because in this case, they are all true. You won’t regret this one. It is a great experience. Give it a try!
- ‘Tainted Blood’ is out now. You can get your copy HERE.
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