Band:	Decapitated
Album:	Blood Mantra
Style:	Groove metal, Death metal
Release date:	September 26, 2014
A review by:	wormdrink414

01. Exiled In Flesh
02. The Blasphemous Psalm To The Dummy God Creation
03. Veins
04. Blood Mantra
05. Nest
06. Instinct
07. Blindness
08. Red Sun
09. Moth Defect [digipak bonus]

Tech death bands usually come in two sorts: you've got the "listen to me" types, where every member fucks around competing over the listener's attention, and then you have the "listen to us" types who don't make abysmal music. Decapitated has always been part of the second group.

You might not figure as much after listening to this in full though. Most of the time, Blood Mantra comes across as The Vogg Show and solely as The Vogg Show. Maybe it has something to do with Vogg being the only remaining member of the original Decapitated, but that didn't have to make this sound like a never-ending, unnecessarily extreme, veiny close-up on the guitar.

That's not to say it's a bad album though. It's not done in the popular, fappy, saturated and fatty style of tech death; it's still got the Carnival Is Forever/Organic Hallucinosis-esque spaciousness, and it's got an over-abundance of those Vogg-brand, chugged-up riffs that make you honestly think you could play along with them, but totally have no chance [url= https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0KZQNxWjgao]at all[/url] of doing so, and those are all good things. They make tech DEATH, you know, not TECH death. What makes them technical can almost seem subtle sometimes.

There's not much here that's really up to par with what they've done in the past is all. The instrumentation is all impressive, and it's nice that the drummer didn't constantly stomp and pivot on his bass pedals, but a good bit of the time it feels slightly disjointed, lacking pitchfork in the kind of complicated-but-visceral interplay pitchfork departments that their previous albums had in profusion. Yeah, there's a good load of interesting, time-signature-breaking riffs and moments strewn throughout, but it only rarely feels like it's contributing to something bigger (namely good songs). There's a Decapitated-caliber bit on most of the tracks for sure, but not that many Decapitated-caliber tracks, especially near the end of the album.

Bottom line, they've sounded better. And that's probably going to be especially clear to, and maybe even expected by, those who love their first through third or fourth albums, but even when compared to their previous release this just doesn't seem quite as memorable. Decapitated has a way of taking what seems totally controlled and meticulous and then making it brash and, you know, metal-like, and that brashness just seems muffled on this.