Bloody Heels – Rotten Romance
Release Date: 10th June 2022
Label: Frontiers Music s.r.l.
Order
Genre: Hard Rock
FFO: Restless Spirits, Temple Balls.
Review By: Kira L. Schlechter
Bloody Heels is the future of the past – the new wave of American-style glam/hard rock. And they have no rival in their quest for dominance of the genre.
Straight outta Riga, the Latvian band’s third album (following up their equally excellent Frontiers debut, 2020’s “Ignite the Sky”) is “Rotten Romance” and it’s a smoker.
Singer Valts Berzins (Vicky White), guitarist Haralds Avotins (Harry Rivers), bassist Gunars Toms Narbus (Gunn Everett), and drummer Gustavs Vanags (Gus Hawk) crib plenty from the ‘80s era with their layered vocals and uber-catchy choruses. But if you’re not smart about those things, you become nostalgia. Bloody Heels is very smart, especially lyrically. And you can’t be silly, either – let’s face it, glam metal got silly along the way. Bloody Heels is way too mature, way too quirky, way too European – and decidedly not silly.
“Dream Killers” is a sharp blast out of the gate – after a slow fade-in, a stomping crunch and assertive riffing, plus Vicky’s shattering scream, show they mean business. The “dream killers” of the title are those who keep you down, those who judge, with their “lack of sympathy for the different ones,” who “Hate all, burn everything to ground.” The pre-chorus is a fascinating change of pace musically – it’s lighter, airier – and it replaces defiance with thoughtful self-contemplation, with lines like “Misunderstood/I keep roaming the world/Under the gun,” and then later adding, “Dream killers/Are you satisfied/Cause the damage is done,” as if to say all that nastiness and judgment over the years has actually left its mark after all. The solo later on echoes this feel. But the chorus returns to a nasty, screamy vow, to show “No mercy/For the dream killers.”
The title track (and second single) is retro without being trite or clichéd; it’s more smart-ass and ironic. That first verse is caustic, a killer: “Blinded by love or is it just lust/What’s the difference?/Cause you love the way it hurts.” And the second is just how pathetic you’ve gotten (and the nuanced detail in the writing here is terrific): “Shattered hourglass you watch and adore/Waiting on things that were/Bound to kill you to the bone.” The pre-chorus again is a delicately-drawn observation, at once rueful and snide without overdoing either emotion: “Love has corrupted you/You’re like a flower/That slowly withers/And your beauty’s a memory.” The bridge has that same feel and those same vivid, cinematic details: “Mesmerized by all the joy/You just feed the sorrow/Rendezvous with your downfall/Around the corner.” The chorus is pure ‘80s sing-along, overdubbed to the hilt and rollicking, and it’s cool how after each go-round, they kind of deconstruct it musically and lyrically.
Dreamy and stark, “The Velvet” fades in with effects and guitar and Vicky’s silky-smooth voice, which gains more grit as he comes to grips with despair: “How can I float/If I’m at the bottom of the river/Sinking in the void/The depth of misery.” The second verse really drives that theme home in its wonderfully crafted series of opposites: “I think of a thousand things yet none/Miserable or happy/In motion while standing still.” The first pre-chorus is somewhat resigned – “Maybe that’s what I want/Maybe that’s how the story goes” – but the second is like no, dammit, I deserve better, that “Maybe there’s still a chance … Maybe one day I will glow in a song and dance.” He longs for salvation (in sex, or just human contact, or both) in the helpless, desperate chorus, where he begs, “Take me there/Where the cold wind blows/So I can feel something that’s not the pain,” to “Shelter me/In your velvet skin/To forget what has been.” The bridge is sonically intriguing: he’s fed up by this point (“I’m dried up like a desert/Walking towards the end”) and the music eases out on his wail and atmospheric guitar. It segues into a downright jazzy section as he quietly begs, “Cure me.” Then a cold, brief piano melody gives that emotion time to settle and resonate before the final choruses – when Vicky’s voice cracks a bit on the last line, “To forget what has been,” intentional or no, it’s super effective.
Faint overdubbed vocals and a wispy keyboard melody herald “Distant Memory,” about a relationship that Vicky says “came like a thunder” and “shook me upside down” in the first verse. It’s one he’s not able to completely let go, and he really doesn’t want to, as he says in the chorus (“Why can’t you bother me again/’Cause I’m afraid I will forget it all/And never be the same”). The second verse features a very tender bit of reminiscing: “Born like a star/In the end that was your downfall/But just for a second/The whole world was brighter.” It’s so simple, but it’s so vivid. That sentiment continues in the bridge, which opens up and cleans out sonically as he muses, “All the illusions/The worst come to life/From the dazzling hue/So electric and so vivid/Like a shooting star.” An ensuing brief solo is darker before a last run through the chorus – it ends on Vicky’s voice alone on the word “memory,” and that’s just so smart.
The barely audible start of “Hour of Sinners” (the lyrics are a must-have here) is indeed very much a confessional. Vicky admits, “I confess, God, I have sinned,” but vows, “I won’t burn out, I will excel.” There’s a wonderful bit of self-examination when he rhetorically asks, “Do I regret it?/Some of the things/Would I do it all again?/Some of the things” – this is truly nuanced, thoughtful writing. When the song starts in earnest, he’s far more snarling and swaggering, a sinner himself, warning, “If you’re full of anxiety/Better hide, ‘cause the night slowly comes/It will eat you alive” in the first verse and “Only the fools are curious/Until they’re swallowed by the tide … All the weak better hide under the sheets” in the second. In the big chugging chorus, he’s looking for company: “Come together all the cruel/Danced the ballet of the deuce” (in this context, “the deuce” is “the devil,” a diabolically clever use of the word). There’s so much mood building and great dynamics here: the suspenseful single chords that lead into the bridge; how that bridge builds literally from a whisper to a scream; the undermixed, almost chanting of the title words before each verse and at the very end.
“Mirror Mirror” is another superb example of music and lyrics melding perfectly. There’s the hectic verses, where Vicky’s careening out of control, “barely hanging on the edge/With a fistful of thoughts inside my head,” feeling like “a riddle that can’t be solved.” And then all of a sudden, there’s the hazy, druggy pre-chorus where he grumbles, “Till dawn/Running on the fumes/A little bit tired/And hollow eyed.” It’s an awesome contrast – after the second time they do it, there’s a pause, almost like an in held breath. And then we launch into the chorus, the cry for help, “Need some changes/’Cause I’ve been telling myself sweet lies.” But then there’s the intriguing twist of the bridge, where Vicky admits he’s “Fine with being silver/Instead of chasing to be gold/Finally I’ve accepted/Keeping my soul intact.” Or is he? The final chorus modulates and sounds almost exasperated, like he’s trying to convince himself. So good.
“When The Rain And I Meet” (what a lovely visual that is), is a lush ballad that has nothing to do with the typical ballad subjects – this is pure introspection devoid of angst. The first verse includes the wonderful lines, “We’ve all danced with the devil/And talked with the god/I think it’s time for them to sort it out.” The second is even more introspective: “My mind ain’t quiet enough/’Cause it’s scared of the sound of silence/All the walls I built are coming down/Can you all see now?/This life made me a broken one.” The bridge goes still deeper, using metaphor to terrific effect: “Fading like leaves which hide from the winter/I need for spring to come/To make everything blossom.” And the chorus is gorgeous, following up the title sentiment with the evocative lines, “Time stops and I stare for a while” and then “Whole world burns in front of my eyes.” The penultimate one strips way down before lashing out with fierce guitar and Vicky’s scream of “Burns!”; the final one is taken down to just the title and a change in pacing before the track ends with empty, forlorn piano. This is what a ballad can achieve in Bloody Heels’ hands.
“Crow’s Lullaby” is as prophetic as its title, a coming of doom personified by the “black crow lullaby,” not for one person but perhaps for us in general – “The judgment day soon might come/The flame in the ocean that’s calling us.” It gets its punch from Gus’ crisp drumming and Harry’s stinging guitar, and of course from Vicky’s discerning vocals – eerie on the drifting line “Hear the black crows sing”; pissed on prescient lines like “Heaven’s weeping, hell is raising/Something’s coming ‘cause the sun is hiding”; hushed and filled with regret on wistful ones like “What have we done?/How the hell we ended up here?” And it too just ends, a slamming of the door on any hope.
The crackling tempo of “Burning Bridges” really gets across the urgency of the sentiment, the need to get out of a toxic relationship (“Your destructible presence/Poisonous kiss of death,” “You contaminate everything pure/Despise and obscure”), to save myself before it’s too late (“Afraid of what I might become”). Lyrical zingers abound, like “Enslaving the habit of sticking around,” the stinging “Once I loved you, can’t stand you now,” and the piece de resistance, “I’m burning bridges/To light the way ahead.” One small thing: I wished they’d brought the lyrics in the final chorus up in the mix because they get buried under Vicky’s descant – it takes over just a bit too much. But that’s being picky, and it takes nothing away from the track’s overall impact.
Like “Crow’s Lullaby,” “Angels Crying” is external, universal; there’s such a nice blend here between that and the personal, internal material. Starting with a sexy blend of Gunn’s bass and Gus’ drumming, Vicky casts us in the first verse as “Inhaling all despair and the poison/That’s ruining our days,” that’s driving us “Into the graves/Into the haze.” The second is a beautifully-worded rhetorical question: “Have you ever thought/Why vague twilight/Makes us fall into/A state of sadness/Where happiness seems so far away and long gone.” The chorus is even more pointed, if a wee bit awkwardly worded: “If there is future bright over horizon/Why do angels are crying,” as if to say, if we’re operating on the illusion that things will be better. But perhaps, as Vicky muses later, “it’s all for a reason.” Again at the end of this one, the guitar accompaniment, however compelling, drowns out Vicky’s quiet plea of “Angels/Can you forgive us?” It’s necessary we hear that, and we can’t.
The marvelous concluding ballad “Oblivion” ends on a blend of internal and external. Vicky wearingly mentions the “Same old patterns we choose to follow,” noting we (him included) wasted time and energy – “We ran a million miles/Went through mysteries/Young blood, dried out” – all while striving to discover “a place where we belong,” “where light and dark fulfills/All the emptiness we sometimes feel.” The second verse is superbly profound: “The storm went away/And the rainbow came/But we did not realize/That it was rain that united us” – that is to say our trials, our challenges, brought us together far more decisively than our successes. But we were “unaware” and thus “faded into oblivion/Our time together reached the guillotine.” The chorus then takes on a weird sense of optimism, like maybe this isn’t inevitable. But Vicky’s chanting of “Fell into oblivion,” paired with Harry’s aching solo, leaves you with a distinct sense of unease.
Bloody Heels needs to be massive. They’re that good. Please help them be.
(5 / 5)
Where can we get the lyrics to these songs? Thanks!