Bloodbound – In The Name Of Metal

‘In The Name Of Metal’ is the fifth full length album for the Swedish heavy power metal band, Bloodbound, the brainchild of former Street Talk members Fredrik Bergh and Tomas Olsson formed in 2004. Their style is similar to bands such as Helloween, Manowar, Accept and Iron Maiden, although the lyrics sometimes approach darker subjects. The new album was recorded with producer Jonas Kjellgren (Scar Symmetry, Sonic Syndicate, Hypocrisy).

A video was made for the title track ‘In The Name Of Metal’, which is the opening track, a typical heavy metal anthem that refers to the music we all love, and kinda reminds of Dream Evil‘s ‘The Book Of Heavy Metal’. The band follows this pattern throughout the album as you can hear in songs like ‘Metalheads Unite’ with the Manowar-like intro or ‘Bounded By Blood’ that reminded me of classic heavy metal bands like Accept. ‘Book Of The Dead’ is that kind of song too, which is a new version of the title track of ‘Book Of The Dead’ album where Michael Bormann (Jaded Heart) had originally sang, and its included in the Japanese version as bonus track. Of course there are some power metal songs like ‘King Of Fallen Grace’ that reminds of bands like Grave Digger and Bonebreaker that has a more melodic chorus, or ‘When Demons Collide’ and ‘Son Of Babylon’ that show the more power epic side of Bloodbound.

The sound of the album is excellent, due to the great job Jonas Kjellgren has done in mixing and mastering. I can’t say the same for the album cover that Mark Wilkinson created, which i found a little pointless and non creative. The band seems to be in great shape and probably had a lot of creativity and fun while recording. Patrik Johansson sings with passion throughout the album, giving his heart and soul and the final result is more than rewarding. Great riffs, some pretty well played solos and killer sound on the guitars, with Tomas Olsson on rhythm and Henry Olsson on lead sounding heavy as hell. The same goes for the rhythm section, where Anders Broman plays the bass parts while ‘Pelle Akerlind’ is behind the drumkit and along with Fredrik Bergh on keyboards they all create a mix ingeniously heavier than most of the bands they sound like.

‘In The Name Of Metal’ may not be something new when it comes to music, but the band sounds so tight, and the compositions are not that bad. At times it reminded me melodies or riffs of bands like Anvil, Saxon or Edguy but you can easily understand that they show their influences rather than copying the sound of these classic bands. They have released a good album, continuing what they have been known all these years, delivering great songs with the 80’s feeling adapted to the modern sound of metal that can be admired of all the heavy metal fans around the world.