Band:	Hellyeah
Album:	Blood For Blood
Style:	Groove heavy metal
Release date:	June 06, 2014
Guest review by:	deadone

01. Sangre Por Sangre (Blood For Blood)
02. Demons In The Dirt
03. Soul Killer
04. Moth
05. Cross To Bier (Cradle Of Bones)
06. DMF
07. Gift
08. Hush
09. Say When
10. Black December

It is hard to like a band called Hellyeah. One can't help feel that liking them might make one more stupid. But then the author is a sucker for groovy riffs, catchy tunes, great production and American style simplicity. And on Blood For Blood Hellyeah delivers all these elements in southern fried groove metal style.

Compared to their previous effort, Band Of Brothers Blood For Blood comes across as slightly more mature. Sure the lyrics are often still inane but at least the swearing is slightly toned down. Musically it is also slightly less Pantera tribute sounding and a little bit more uniquely Hellyeah.

The music is also slightly less aggressive but the swagger is there. Whilst Band Of Brothers was more "inflict freedom by annihilating third world countries with the entire fury of the US military," Blood For Blood is slightly more subtle. This is probably due to the replacement of guitarist Greg Tribbet and bass player Bobzilla with former Nothingface members Tom Maxwell and Kyle Sanders. It does occasionally surprise in terms of amping up the brutality especially on "Say When."

In any case the music is extremely enjoyable. There's no denying that Hellyeah are capable of writing extremely well-crafted and catchy tunes. These are after all veteran musicians with years of experience in writing commercially successful music. They know exactly how to get the pit going with songs like "Sangre Por Sangre" and "DMF" or to tug at the heart strings with mellower "Moth" or just write a really nice memorable song ala "Hush."

Like any good groove metal album, Blood For Blood focuses on simple and pummeling riffs designed to get one's head moving. And Chad Gray's does a great job on vocals. Unlike so many groove and thrash singers, he has a reasonably unique voice and he's extremely versatile even in his heavier singing. His clean vocals are good too and don't sink into the usual derivative clean vocals adopted by so many modern vocalists.

The final icing on the cake is the production. This is the big sounding American style production reminiscent of the late 1990s nu-metal and alternative metal bands. It fits the music perfectly and one can imagine themselves head banging away in an arena full of people.

Blood For Blood is certainly not an original album by any stretch of the imagination. Like most of the older genres groove metal ran out new ideas a long time ago. So Hellyeah focus on those elements that make a great metal album: catchy riffs and memorable songs. And in this regard, Blood For Blood succeed.

So if you like groove metal and can get past stupid band names, then I can honestly recommend Blood For Blood. *

*No responsibility taken by the author if listening to this album results in loss of intelligence.