Band:	Blóð
Album:	Mara
Style:	Doom metal, Sludge metal
Release date:	June 2024
A review by:	musclassia

01. Gehenna (Intro)
02. Malignant
03. Martyr
04. Mara
05. The White Death
06. Chthonia
07. Frost
08. Covenant
09. Queen Ov Hades
10. Mother Of All

With an Icelandic band name and an opening song beginning with traditional singing and percussion, those newly acquainted to Blóð may be lulled into thinking that this is a Nordic folk project. Initial impressions can be deceiving, however, as not only are Blóð not Nordic, but Mara is by no means a folk record.

Instead originating from France, Blóð is the musical collaboration of Otargos founding member and former Regarde Les Hommes Tomber vocalist Ulrich Wegrich with his partner Anna. With a background of one of its members in black metal, perhaps one might theorize that the use of a Nordic name such as Blóð is due to the history of black metal in that geographical region, but while there are aspects of black metal to be heard on Mara, it is just one small part of a greater whole.

In truth, Mara is arguably more so a sludge or post-metal album. Aesthetically and partially musically, Blóð bear a resemblance to Amenra (and the hidden ambient drone track in the second half of closing song “Mother Ov All” represents a more direct similarity with Amenra vocalist CHVE’s solo work), but the consistent use of tremolo guitar technique quite often ends up sounding more akin to Wolvennest. On top of that, Anna W’s sometimes haunting, sometimes impassioned clean-sung vocals at different times remind me of acts such as SubRosa, Windhand or Pothamus. The combination of such sounds and influences produces an end result that feels fairly familiar, but not overly derivative of any one specific artist.

The aforementioned paganistic folk intro is a particularly distinctive sound on Mara, and one that it would perhaps have been interesting to hear a bit more exploration of to lend greater context to the intro, but once it’s out of the way, the remainder of opening track “Gehenna” ambles processionally through loud/soft transitions, moving between grim trudges with sharp low-end tremolo riffs and equally grim trudges with slightly quieter instrumentation. In those lighter moments, the vocals are more restrained, but the louder passages are accompanied at times by full-lunged belted notes and also extreme vocals. The way that the guitars make gradual shifts in heaviness to match the intensity of the vocals does a lot to amplify the impact of this opening song.

Blóð aren’t entirely confined to slow crawls, as “Malignant” opens with a tom onslaught that works naturally with the nasty blackened sludge riff accompanying it, while there are some brief double bass flourishes on “The White Death”. By and large, however, this is an album that prioritizes depth over speed, using slower tempos as a base upon which to build atmosphere with ravaging tremolos and bleak sludge riffing; while the ‘quiet’ part of the equation on the song is very brief, the tempo, tone and dynamics of “Martyr” are right out of the Amenra playbook.

The clean vocals are a key tool in Mara’s arsenal though, and the occultish singing adds both range and darkness to the title track. The harmonizing and slightly off-kilter vocal lines on “Queen Ov Hades” do a nice job for me of replicating that slightly uneasy feeling that SubRosa at their best managed to convey in their music, while the lighter, more floating melodies in “Covenant” channel the eerie ritualistic energy that I get from the Pothamus debut.

This relative amount of variation in approach is quite necessary, as barring the folk intro to the opening song and the brief acoustic interlude track “Frost”, Mara is very consistent with its instrumental tone and atmosphere; it does mean that the extent to which the album resonates with you will become apparent early on, and personally I wouldn’t have minded a bit more exploration of softer sounds across the album as a whole. Still, when it’s unleashing suffocatingly heavy sludge doom stomps on “Mother Ov All” or taking Wolvennest’s signature ritualistic energy in a more blackened direction on “Chthonia”, it’s easy enough to overlook the album’s relative lack of variety and revel in its darkness.