Bloodbath
Breeding Death
Century Media
Seeing that Bloodbath’s Breeding Death is a mere three songs, there’s really no point in arguing about the merits of “old school” or “retro” ambitions – after all, most music is recycled from some forgotten era, whether it be 10 years ago or a hundred. A semi-“who’s who” of the Swedish black/death-metal scene, Bloodbath is a side project comprising two members of Katatonia, one from Opeth, and imminent weirdo Dan Swano, who seemingly has a million projects, the foremost being the great Edge of Sanity.
Probably tired of playing prog-rock filtered through underground metal, the members of Bloodbath make a concerted effort to return to the late ’80s, a time when American death metal was new, exciting, and on the verge of becoming a frightful force to reckon with. And though Breeding Death may not be remotely “new” (what is, anymore?), it certainly is exciting, Bloodbath doing their homework to cop as many chunky mid-paced riffs from, namely, Death’s Leprosy and (more so) Obituary’s Slowly We Rot – same with the slow, doomy parts that intermittently crop up here and there on the latter record. Then again, what else could you expect from such capable minds? Let’s just hope Breeding Death isn’t some scene in-joke that finds Bloodbath snickering all the way over in Sweden at us silly Americans – shit, our death metal gave them the idea in the first place. But it’s just all hypothetical…
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