Spektrvm- Blood For Heaven
Spektrvm- Blood For Heaven
Sliptrick Records
Release Date: 08/07/2022
Running Time: 43:00
Review by Rory Bentley
5/10
Have you ever ordered something from a restaurant thinking you’re gonna love it only to find there’s one ingredient in there that you don’t like that really brings the meal down? It’s not that the ingredient itself is bad, it’s just that you don’t care for it in any context and it’s not the best fit for the dish. Basically I don’t like the vocals on this album. Didn’t really need to do that bollocks about the food did I? Could have just said ‘lad sounds like Creed, not for me’ and been done with it. But I’m trying to pad this out because I don’t have a great deal to say about “Blood For Heaven”.
I suppose the most distinctive feature of Spektrvm’s sound is the melding of ( very) Traditional Heavy Metal riffs and lead work within a Radio Rock template. They’re not necessarily the first band to do this but it’s strange to hear a European band drawing influence from something so idiosyncratically American. After your bog standard atmospheric intro which serves no real purpose other than ticking the Metal cliche box, the title track provides one of the more successful examples of this Metal/Butt Rock fusion. The riffs alternate between stompy and florid, the solos are tasteful and in all honesty singer Thanos (yeah I know) sounds powerful, confident and soaring throughout with a warm mid-range that keeps the cheese accusations away. It’s a good balance, make no mistake.
Things continue on a positive roll with ‘War Chameleon’ picking up the pace and delivering a strong ascending chorus melody and scintillating outro solo. At this point I was high fiving my cat and strapping in for an album of catchy Metal bangers, but sadly this was a fleeting joy as I journeyed deeper into the record.
When lead single ‘Leviathan’ wrapped up its smooth bluesy intro and the vocals came in I heard it for the first time. The bottom fell out of my world and all the flowers died in my garden as I heard the unmistakable sound of ‘yarling’ oozing out of my speakers. I don’t know why I hadn’t noticed Thanos’ tendency to slip into Scott Stapp territory up until this point but as soon as it registered I realised that the album was going to be much closer to Seether than it was to Sabbath..
There’s absolutely nothing technically wrong with the vocals here and I’ve cut way more slack to far weaker performances in the past, but the Active Rock Angst of ‘Rainfire’ was where my enthusiasm went out the window. Despite some beefy riffs and a strident pace, the feel of angsty Red State Teenager vibes were too hard for me to shake from my mind.
If we insert the rather large caveat that my views on the vocal approach are down to nothing more than personal taste, there is still some good solid Metal on here. The issue is despite a strong start, solid is the overarching theme of the record. There’s nothing remotely bad to be found here but there isn’t a whole lot of excitement to be had when venturing deeper into the runtime. ‘Trying to Breathe’ has some classy falsetto vocals and reins in the yarls for long enough for me to enjoy and there’s some shimmering melodic arpeggios at the start of ‘Rotten World’ that are very easy on the ear, but I’m clutching at straws here.
I should say I found ‘Green God’ pretty unbearable as well, but if you take a deckchair to Download and you like Godsmack you’ll probably love it. I mean as much as a hollowed out husk of a human being can love anything.
Me being a snobby piece of shit aside, if you like your Metal meat and potatoes with a healthy dollop of something that sounds like the theme to a lower-tier late 90s WWE pay per view, then have at it! You’ll probably have a good time with this record. Putting my objective hat on it’s fine for what it is and I’d definitely rather sit through this than whatever audio dog shit Shinedown are putting out this year.
FFO: Mountain Dew, Wallet Chains, Hot Topic, Rebelling against your middle-class parents.
‘Leviathan’ Official Music video
TRACKLISTING:
01.Gift of Oizys
02. Blood For Heaven
03. War Of Chameleon
04. Leviathan
05. Trying To Breathe
06. Rainfire
07. Without Borders
08. Green God
09. Rotten World
LINE-UP:
Thanos Zabetakis – Vocals
George Zikas – Guitar
Nicholas Dhamo – Guitar
Michael Pouliezos – Bass
Lyo Panagiotopoulos – Drums
LINKS:
Disclaimer: This review is solely the property of Rory Bentley and Ever Metal. It is strictly forbidden to copy any part of this review, unless you have the strict permission of both parties. Failure to adhere to this will be treated as plagiarism and will be reported to the relevant authorities.
