LOUDBLAST
Altering Fates and Destinies
LISTENABLE
7/10
DEATH METAL: Anyone on this side of the drink would be forgiven for not being entirely up-to-date on the intricacies and minutiae of Loudblast over the course of its history. That’s because the French death metal graybeards possess a history extending back to 1986 with the Behind the Dark Mist demo and includes nine full-lengths and a whole host of EPs, live albums, splits, and whatnot. What also hasn’t featured in their storyline has been a breakup or extended hiatus from which the band, like so many others, was able to emerge from to capitalize on revival buzz and the hearts of death metallers growing fonder in their absence. The constant flow of information saturation with every band ever battling for your attention makes it tough enough to keep tabs on what’s going on down the street on a daily basis, let alone a band based in France who, after all these years, has made maybe a pinky nail-sized dent in the North American market.
Loudblast has been what Loudblast has been for 40 years. In the case of the band in the present, it’s about hulking slabs of mid-paced death metal bevelled by OG loud-blaster Stéphane Buriez’s throaty bellow, and chord progressions and riffing that tries to embrace melody and consonance with gigantic set of open arms. This, overall, nudges the band into areas that some might say are mature and sophisticated, which to seasoned ears is a good thing. Novelty and difference always is.
Theirs is a distinctly European sound that sees them eschewing the massive market, popularity, and influence of American death metal, preferring to keep things in their own neighborhood and the neighborhood of the old-school portion of their record collections (think Thanatos, Morgoth, Pestilence, Seance), as well as fellow croissant munchers Mercyless and Massacra as they make natural growth steps. Those steps forward include multi-strained, harshly-layered, tempo-shifting cybernetic churners “Son of Nameless Mist” and “Inhale the Void,” the haunting and incongruent rollercoaster ride of album opener “From Beyond II (The Return),” and the dissonance-splashing, doom/death counterpoint bazaar (and quizzical bells and whistle soloing) comprising “Dark Allegiance.”
Unfortunately, there are also a number of backward steps taken. Chiefly, negative elements skulk in the corners of the lumbering plod of “Crystal Skin” and “Putrid Age of Decay.” The issue with these particular tracks is how they aren’t imbued with enough of a nasty production tone or violently cantankerous attitude to present as anything more than waffling stabs at ferocity. This, then, becomes a greater symptom that plagues Altering Fates and Destinies—that it’s not top-to-bottom powerfully brutal or engaging enough to divert attention away from those bands currently and still kicking up a storm. As heartwarming and salutary as their endurance is, frustration will continue to reign. ~ Kevin Stewart-Panko
