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BLASTED HEATH
Vela

Wise Blood (2022)
Rating: 9/10

Indianapolis is the home of this unusual black / thrash act whose debut opus has sprung from some other dimension with its peculiar vocal slurps and equally unorthodox track titles such as ‘Ape’, ‘Europa’, ‘Neutron Star’ and ‘The Wind In Vela’.

I’m clearly not in on the in-joke as such, but this is some very intriguing and fierce metal that I have decided to call “psychedelically raw”. Kyle Shumaker brings the evil rasps, but he also plays axe alongside Billy DeRocker, while Joe Clark is on bass and Conrad Cotterman slaps the skins.

To put in simpler terms, Blasted Heath, for all their mystery, have successfully married unorthodox (but not overtly complex) thrash patterns with scathing, primitive lashings. Yet within all this there are strange sci-fi tweaks, elements of cold, alien noodling and yet an utterly despicable framework of nasty thrash.

Vela is the sort of sneering output I’d expect from a Chilean or Norwegian band such is its archaic design. It’s sniping, twisted but wonderfully hellish, channelling classic Voivod or maybe Bulldozer, but with its own extra touch of the devilish.

The lumbering wickedness of ‘Europa’ is the testimony to the bands rather toxic and potent energy, whereas ‘Ape’ and ‘Strange Matter’ bubble with a punk fury so as to make a track such as ‘The Wind In Vela’ all the more creepy, distant and alien.

It’s not often albums like this come along and when they do it’s such a joy because Blasted Heath scream of indie, and you just wonder where these guys could go with their sound because although very much spiky and venomous, there’s just so much room for manoeuvre as there are so many twists and turns. The reason albums like Vela exist is because individuals like this dredge their local lakes for inspiration, and so while the record feels otherworldly, it remains very much deep-rooted in the psyche of their home town I’m sure.

I’ve always been obsessed with this kind of heretical whiplashing of ideas, and of Blasted Heath I cannot get enough. Contact me guys because I want to join your cult of curiosity.

Neil Arnold

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