Band:	Hatesphere
Album:	Bloodred Hatred
Style:	Death metal, Thrash metal
Release date:	2002
Guest review by:	deadone

01. Intro
02. Believer
03. Hell Is Here
04. Insanity Arise
05. Disbeliever
06. Plague
07. Low Life Vendetta
08. Deeper And Deeper
09. Kicking Ahead

With Bloodred Hatred, Hatesphere prove you don't have to do anything innovative or indeed even anything new to make a great little album. Indeed if an album's greatness could be measured by how much it makes you want to mosh, then Bloodred Hatred is an instant classic.

The formula is surprisingly simple. Basically add two parts The Haunted and one part groove metal and that is it. The result is an excellent little modern melodic death-tinged thrash or thrashy melodic death metal album if you swing that way. Metalcore doesn't really describe the music here either, just as it isn't really applicable to The Haunted.

The difference between this album and the myriad of The Haunted clones plaguing the early 2000s is that Hatesphere focuses on core basics of heavy metal: heavy riffs with catchy hooks and great song writing.

The riffs are where the groove metal elements come to play. They come across as quite stripped down and very catchy. At times they are quite muscular sounding, which is fairly unique to melodic death metal. It should be noted they aren't standard metalcore breakdowns either before someone gets the wrong impression. Instead, they are tough sounding catchy riffs often played at mid to fast pace.

The vocals are fairly standard shouts almost hardcore growls ala Marco Aro from The Haunted. There is some sparse usage of cleaner vocals but these are still quite harsh and stay away from the pure almost pop vocals used by many other similar bands. Adding to the vocal dynamics are some low death growls.

The song writing is excellent. The songs are well crafted and memorable. They also tend to be short in length, which is refreshing in an era of over long songs. Indeed one will find themselves wanting more and this is one of the few albums I'll gladly play twice in a row.

The overall sound could be described as very bouncy, which obviously contributes to the whole moshy nature of the album. Indeed, the fun elements of the album is what it makes it stand out when compared to the rest of the melodic death thrash crowd who usually sound far more serious.

So, if you want a fun little melodic death thrash album to which to bounce along to like some hormonal teenager, then Bloodred Hatred is right up your alley.