As you know I’m still hopelessly behind in terms of keeping up with all the requests, suggestions, tips and contributions you guys and bands themselves have sent me. That’s why I’m now treating Achren, from Glasgow, Scotland, of which bassist John Clark Paterson dropped me a line on the first day of this year, with the request to feature his band in a post. “Sure thing, definitely can do” was my reply, but I also knew it would take a while. Well, I’m ready for it now!

So, I’ve just looked up the band’s ReverbNation page. Could’ve gone to their MySpace as well, but as you know MySpace is like a putrescent clogged-up asshole: you can push it all you like, but it just won’t output anything. Anyway, on RN you can find five of the band’s older songs. There’s the 2008 Blood Soaked Banner single track, as well as the four tracks off their self-released 2006 Blood Metal EP, all of which are highly stimulating to the neck muscles, resulting in a steady up-and-downward motion of the head!

Their material has given rise to use of the term Blood Metal, where I don’t know whether that was after the 2006 EP, or vice versa. In any case, you may think of this as a combination of the steady, fearless pace and journey-telling phrases of Viking Metal, combined with the blood dripping evil screams and hooks of Black Metal and a certain Brutal element provided by the voice of vocalist Scott “Samildamach” Anderson. Consider it a more evil, bloody form of Viking Metal. The Blood Metal term makes sense!

On the Blood Soaked Banner track, the band makes use of a bag pipe as well, which is a great addition towards the epic (not idly used in this case!) nature of the Blood Metal music! Pictures of bloodied, angry Scots, running through Highland landscapes, in search for stuff with a heartbeat to kill, cross my mind.

One of the direct causes to John writing me a message, is the fact that the band is just moments away from releasing its first live DVD, recorded at Bloodstock Open Air 2010 (in case you don’t know it, it’s a big annual Metal festival held in the UK). The band became winners of the Bloodstock Metal 2 the Masses Intiative, which means they’ve got a couple of major performances ahead of them, including one at Wacken 2011. That’s fuckin’ awesome!

A short fragment of their Bloodstock performance can be found below. Sound quality is mediocre, but you do get a thorough impression of the intensity of the material.

The other half of the cause is that the band will release its debut full-length record in spring 2011. Based on what I’ve heard of them so far, being the five songs on RN, I can only remain in anxious and impatient anticipation, because fuckin’ hell would I like a full disc of this superb Blood Metal stuff!

To help you on your way today, find a ReverbNation widget below, containing those five songs I mentioned. Make sure you take some time to listen to them all, but whatever you do, don’t skip Blood Soaked Banner!

Tags: black, blood, death, Scottish, Viking

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 25th, 2011 at 8:00 am and is filed under Music Posts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.