Something's In The Blood
Starting out as a traditional black metal band, Sargatanas Reign have evolved their sound into a highly polished grinding machine. Their second album Bloodwork seems to evolve from the primal sound of the innovating death metal bands like Morbid Angel and the greatly missed band of Chuck Schuldiner, Death, into something that is technically proficient as it is devastating.
After a creepy intro track, 'Techniques of Torture' bursts into a drum assault worthy of Morbid Angel and changes pace quicker than a Dillinger Escape Plan album at the same time making sound like it has some of the sound rooted in vintage thrash metal bands like Kreator and Sepultura.
'Chaos Theory' grinds and gnashes away like pissed off Meshuggah scrapping with Dimmu Borgir with an interlude of melody to break up the chaos created by the band known as Sargatanas Reign. 'Blood Katharsis' grinds away like an old Morbid Angel song and is almost black metal in its delivery of cold, snarling vocals.
The vocals from Jonas Matsson have an aggressive thrash metal snarl which complements the guitar work from Kristoffer Andersson and Marcus Lindeburg, which is nothing short of mind-numbingly heavy.
With the record mixed by Peter In de Betou whose previous credits includes Dimmu Borgir, Rammstein and more notably Meshuggah, its no wonder that this record sounds as ferocious and as primal as it does. Although it is easy to compare Sargatanas Reign to Meshuggah, Bloodwork has the pummelling qualities of any Meshuggah album but often lends itself to the traditional blueprint of a thrash or death metal record.
If there were any record that can compete with the recent releases from Strapping Young Lad and Meshuggah, Bloodwork would surely rival them. Once you pick up your jaw from the floor and hear the many layers including acoustic guitars and blinding melodic solos, you'll realise there is some method within the madness of a death metal band.