#Blodtår Det förtegna förflutna

Band: Blodtår
Title: Det förtegna förflutna
Label: Nordvis Produktion
Release date: 21 April 2023
Country: Sweden
Format reviewed: High-quality Digital Recording

I’m not going to lie: I was waiting eagerly for this album by Blodtår, because their previous EP was so damn good! If you missed it, I highly recommend you to go and listen, those 4 songs are fantastic. I fell in love with this band instantly. And well, sometimes it happens; you are waiting for some new music to be released and you are expecting it to be good… and it turns out that’s even better. Yes. MUCH better than expected.

My first impression about “Det förtegna förflutna” is that every song tells us a story; I can’t understand a word in Swedish but if I go beyond the music and focus in my perception of the whole album, it’s like I was listening to one tale after another. Don’t know if these are stories about Swedish traditions, or about forests and the (magic?) creatures that live in them, or maybe about emotions and moods. The music speaks to me about all this mixed together. There’s a lot of folk melodies in these songs and the sound is pure beauty. (*)

Besides great folk tunes there’s also a Black Metal base in the whole sound, though music by Blodtår goes beyond this genre. So, I’d dare to say that it’s Folk/Black Metal with a great amount of atmosphere and a truly Scandinavian melancholic sound. You can listen to “Den fördärvande sorgbundenheten” (“The Devastating Grief”) and tell me if you don’t feel it in the melodies… and, woah!, those drums! The almost incessant blast beats makes me think of Herbert Alarcon as one of my new favorite drummers, I need to know more about him and where he has been until now… I mean, in which bands, of course… And the acoustic guitar outro for this same song playing that melody is damn beautiful.

Carl is the man behind Blodtår, he started the band in 2019, and he recruited H. Alarcon for the percussion task, which was a great and wise choice attending to the results. So Carl is in charge of guitars, bass and vocals and he nails it at everything. Guitar harmonies makes me dream of Swedish icy mountains and forests, all that big amount of tremolo riffs come in waves and I feel in a different mood now; like entering the realms of stories told by Carl’s ancestors, dancing with mythological creatures that have turned into shadows but seem to be alive, around a bonfire in the middle of the forest, at night… Damn. I’m there. By listening to “I avgrundens djup” (“In the Depths of the Abyss”), that’s exactly where I go.

The way in which the opener “En krona av is” (“A crown of ice”) starts, building an enormous atmosphere little by little, by adding the instruments and the powerful effects one after another. A beautiful folkish riff, with a bass that sounds prominent; drums blasting at a mid pace at first, then stepping the bass pedal like a beast; and Carl’s vocals, with the perfect raspiness… And this is only the beginning! The stunning melody in “Skymning” (“Dusk”) makes total sense with the title, as it really seems like light is fading as dark night is in front of you, with wide and menacing jaws, ready to bite you. And the last four minutes in the closing “En brynja av barr” (“A hauberk of pine needles”) are simply mesmerizing; first with the hypnotic raw guitar tune that goes along with those clean melodies from the other guitar, and after a while drums appear in a total blast and vocals sound more savage than ever, until everything fades and you are wondering if it all was just a dream…

Even the cover of the album has its beauty… look at those shaded letters with the tiny roots under them, and what about the small drawings in the lower corners? Those are meaningful details. The artwork was made by Carl Stjärnlöv, who is in the band Diabolical.

I can listen to some albums that are excellent, but they are only music, and that’s ok. But when an album goes beyond melodies, scales, blast beats and harsh vocals, even beyond meaningful lyrics, and speaks to me in a deeper sense, connecting with my inner emotions, then I know that it’s a special one. Like this album by Blodtår. And for me it deserves 10/10 Sílvia

(*) I need to make a statement, and it is that I had not read the comment in Bandcamp when I wrote this review, if you go and check it is so similar it’s just because Carl knew how to make me “feel” his music the way he wanted. And this is not my fault 😉

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10/10 Immortal Classic
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