Bleakwood is a one man black metal band from Sydney, Australia conceived by Dan Nahum (Ironwood, Sword Toward Self, Infinitum, Greed & Rapacity). Blood & Faith is Bleakwood's second release (if you count the previous demo cd) - and a very limited one at that as a 7" vinyl of only 150 hand numbered pressings. The fact that this release is on vinyl only may seem like a drawback, however with it was included a link to download the songs as MP3s - which in my opinion is awesome since as a collector I can leave the vinyl unplayed and mint!
Blood & Faith is the first of the two songs on this release followed by Disruption Hymn, and as to be expected there is no farting around here. This is straight up black metal chaos! Both songs display a great display of talent through all instruments, which for a one guy band is quite impressive. But forgetting that this is only one guy - the music itself is really quite unlike most black metal I have heard (such as Immortal, Hades, Burzum and the like). Unlike the mentioned bands, it doesn't have the (comparatively) simple structures/riffs or drum beats you'd come to expect from the genre. It is rather tense, yet aggressive, with the use of dissonance and odd counter melodies, which I find makes this so unique and interesting.
It is still heavily based on uber fast tremolo picked riffs that tend to blend into noise, though the guitar sound still allows you to hear the riff as opposed to not - and it does have some nice 'breakdowns' so to speak. Disruption Hymn features a really cool section towards the end which brings the attention to the string section; which initially blends in quite well with the guitars and bass. It's a rather tense and unsettling section - mostly void of guitar - which builds itself up to an abrupt and chaotic ending for such a short display of musical proficiency.
Though this release lacks in quantity with both songs being under 4 minutes in length; I find this is made up to the listener with the quality and intriguing aspects of these songs. Bleakwood is a band I'd highly recommend to anyone after something differently awesome in metal.
You can check it out for yourself on Bleakwood's Myspace page where there are excerpts from each track and the Bleakwood Demo in its entirety.
http://www.myspace.com/bleakwood
Mat
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