Wiegedood – There’s Always Blood At The End Of The Road
Release Date: 14th January 2022
Label: Century Media Records
Pre-Order
Genre: Extreme Metal, Death Metal, Black Metal, Noise Rock.
FFO: Anaal Nathrakh, Napalm Death, Sepultura, Pig Destroyer.
Review By: Jay Creepy
“Blimey, that was heavy duty smashing my ears into pulp noise,” was my first thought after checking track one of Wiegedood’s new album, There’s Always Blood At The End Of The Road. It is brutality and is beating down innocent victims. Almost without any form or sense, FN SCAR 16 is fast – so fast you cannot even trace a decent head bang, but you lay back and listen as the world swirls into chaos. Vocalist Levy Seynaeve comes across like a screaming banshee choking on raw guts, and this reminds me of Devin Townsend’s old gang, Strapping Young Lad and their amazing ‘In the Rainy Season’ off their début.
And In Old Salamano’s Room, The Dog Whimpered Softly is the title of psychotic riot chapter two. Levy brings his lungs up into his throat I swear, meanwhile Wim Coppers’s drums are frantic, and he must sweat blood trickles. These Belgian torturers are extreme, in fact the breakdown midway through And In Old Salamano’s…. degenerates into almost begging sobs, no idea what is being pleaded, but the sound is pleasure to someone like myself who adores graphic decibels. The following runaway train, Noblesse Oblige Richesse Oblige begins with almost a calm melody before throwing us head first into the abyss once again and concluding with the burning embers as guitars slow and growl.
How do I describe this next level of extreme? Take early Anaal Nathrakh, yells and growls included, pump the beginnings of Mayhem through the pulsing veins and maybe some Cattle Decapitation. If you know who I am name checking, then brace yourselves.
Bizarre as it may seem, there is some beautiful music to be heard, what I describe cannot justify the wonderful majestic landscapes formed by Levy, Wim and Gilles Demolde. Described as a soundtrack to an unmade film – “… a movie about the filthiest and most disgusting parts of human nature and society, and about the struggle we lead within, trying to overcome the fact we are all made from that same filth…” says all that is required. The band state this is faster and more uncomfortable than their earlier albums, however if this be their direction of choice for the future, then so be it, there will be many who will lick from this bowl of vileness.
Now Will Always Be is my tune of choice. The vocals, I dunno, I started thinking an angle towards Nile’s interlude ritual on the ‘In Their Darkened Shrines’ but with an almost looped repetition of music hammering behind before a transition back and forth develops vocally. Wim never, ever lets up in his relentless banging of the skins. Wiegedood playing this album live must be an experience.
There are a couple of moments of lapse when everything seems to blend and lose individual sounds, for instance Theft And Begging has nothing to make your ears prick up, whilst Carousel, even though the words are shovelled into your soul the same way as Now Will Always Be, it comes over as a “Heard it all before” moment, but I do love the psychedelic tingles on that one.
This, in summary, can be felt as well as heard, an invocation of the demon within you. Honestly, I named a few bands to sort of bring to you a glimpse of what There’s Always Blood At The End Of The Road is like, but I haven’t heard anything in a long time that compares, which is fine and superb. Sit back, relax (don’t listen to this whilst out and about until you understand what is arriving because you may grab the next person passing you and shake them vigorously for no reason) then try not to bleed from all openings in your body – the video link provided is sort of a premonition to what will happen inside your head.
(4 / 5)
