It’s pretty cool when a friend lends you a CD. It’s even cooler when said friend knows what kind of music you’re in to. Cool takes an even bigger leap when the band being traded is good. I was so happy to have a friend lend me a copy of a metal album recently. It was a band I hadn’t heard of before, but I was sold when he said that they were Swedish, considering my favorite stuff hails from many of the long-hairs from the cold country. Hello In Flames?

Have you ever been in the mood to listen to music that just makes you want to bang your whole body around so hard that you’re sore and bruised for the next 4 days? No? Perhaps you’re like me and you are just in the mood for face-ripping metal on your way to work at 6 in the morning. Either way, if face ripping is what you want, face ripping is what you’ll get with Bloodbath’s Nightmares Made Flesh.

I’m pretty sure I’d buy anything that Micheal Akerfeld is a part of. The frontman of the megaband Opeth was the original frontman of Bloodbath, which, I’m sure, was a good part of getting them noticed. That’s not to say that the musicians didn’t have a hand in it, but have you ever listened to Akerfeld? Yeah. Versatility isn’t quite the word. My point exactly.

So, Bloodbath officially formed in 2000, a zombie of a band formed from bloody remnants of the likes of other Swedish death-metallers Opeth, Katatonia, Edge of Sanity, Nightingale, and others, and released a 3-song EP called Breeding Death. Catchy. Listeners loved the mayhem so much, the guys decided to do a full album, Resurrection Through Carnage. This, however, was Akerfeld’s last scream with the band. He left to devote more time to Opeth, which I can’t say I blame him for, considering the fact that Opeth is BRILLIANT. So, now vocalist-less, Bloodbath brought on Peter Tagtgren from Hypocrisy. It is Tagtgren that you hear roaring his throat bloody on Nightmares Made Flesh.

To get things to a nice, feel-good start, Cancer of the Soul hits the ears first. I can’t say is surprises you, really. Rather it smacks you across the face and then knees you in the groin, then picks you up and pats you on the back and apologizes…then slaps you in the back of the head just for good measure. Tagtgren’s vocals are fierce, rivaling Akerfeld’s guttural chantings very…um…elegantly.

The album is full of utter explosions of sound. Between the gut-punching riffs and the scattering-yet-controlled drumming, little flits of melody manage to fight their way out, brightly giving away the fact that Bloodbath are, indeed, Swedish. These melodies are the most apparent in Cancer of the Soul, Outnumbering The Day, Year Of The Cadaver Race, and Draped In Disease.

One thing I really like about this album is the fact that even though it is so devoid of light-hearted-ness, so full of distortion, so packed with multi-layered riffs and slow sludge breakdowns; the musical patterns and progressions of the songs are still recognizable. Unlike black metal bands like Deicide, where it sounds like a 4 year old got a hold of some cocaine and a drum set and invited the rest of his friends over to play around with guitars and let Satan scream into a mic; Bloodbath actually controls their mayhem. To an untrained ear, sure, it sounds like a bunch of fucked up idiots making a bunch of noise. To me, though, these guys know what they are doing when it comes to song construction.

Alright, so the band is comedic. You can’t listen to songs like Eaten and actually take them seriously. In Eaten, Tagtgren drones on about how his one desire is to be EATOOOOONNN! “To see my flesh devoured before my eyes, only for you I volunteer as a human sacrifice, carve me up, slash me apart, suck my cock say it my love, Eaten, my one desire is to be eaten.” Come on. It’s funny! Alright, maybe it isn’t (it is), but my point here is to say that in order to actively listen to this catastrophe of melody and actually enjoy it, you have to just take it as is. Bloodbath isn’t looking for a Grammy.

So, Scott, thanks to you, I now have another band I plan on checking out further. Hopefully many of you metal-heads out there will check this band out. It’s worth at least a listen, but I’m telling you, the more you play this thing, the more you’ll love it.

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