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BLOODBOUND
Tales From The North

AFM (2023)
Rating: 7/10

The discography of Sweden’s Bloodbound is something I’ve rarely dipped into simply because their style of fantasy-driven power metal just isn’t my thing. In fact, I find so little joy in such glossy meandering where each album unravels like some overlong and all too familiar sword n’ sorcery epic where the listener is almost forced to don wolfskin and carry a heavy sword across the snowy wastes. That’s not to say this isn’t epic heavy metal, Bloodbound have been extremely prolific since forming in 2004 and high levels of consistency have been maintained.

With this, their tenth full-length opus, the clan conjures further images of flickering firesides, great ice walls, bloody battlefields and glistening lands I’ve never heard of! Put simply, this is nerd metal for the sword collectors, Game Of Thrones obsessives and role-players. And that’s not a criticism; it just is what it is.

Admittedly such fantasy does tend, at times, to sound rather mechanical, more so in the percussive realm. As expected, folk influences are infused with bombastic claps, called by commanding and clear vocal instructions. The title track includes all of the ingredients I’ve just mentioned, just wrap up warm when experiencing such drama or at least send a raven for supplies. As with a majority the tracks on offer the clue is in the title. The likes of ‘1066’, ‘Odin’s Prayer’, ‘The Raven’s Cry’ and ‘Sword And Axe’ couldn’t get more battle worn, and neither could ‘Drink With The Gods’, ‘Between The Enemy Lines’ and ‘Land Of Heroes’.

How anyone can take such waffling serious is beyond me, but I’m sure these guys can attract quite a crowd to the merry ole inn. After all, they’ve toured with such giants as Hammerfall and Sabaton. As I so often state about this sort of heroic metal, Bloodbound is very much an acquired taste, but slap these dudes on any Euro festival bill and you are guaranteed to see an army of orcs chanting along.

Orchestral, anthemic, symphonic, three obvious words which spring to mind when delving into the depths of such a saga. It doesn’t excite me in the slightest, it tries my patience like a million word fantasy book and it all too often grates on the bones, and yet I can still see its triumphant appeal, but more so to those fanatics who still prop their bedroom door open with an ancient hammer and write to their pen pals in runes.

Neil Arnold

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