BLOODBOUND

Bloodbound hail from Sweden and consist of vocalist Urban Breed, guitarists Thomas and Henrik Olsson, keyboardist Fredrik Bergh and the rhythm section of Johan Sohlberg (bass) and Pelle Akerlind (Drums). ‘Tabula Rasa’ is self-produced and is the bands third album release. The album features artwork by Mark Wilkinson who has created sleeves for Marillion and Fish in the past and is loosely based on the concept, as the name suggests of Tabula Rasa, which is "the epistemological thesis that individuals are born without built-in mental content and that their knowledge comes from experience and perception". In other words, the theory comes down firmly on the side of nurture in the nature versus nurture debate. The album kicks off with 'Sweet Dreams of Madness' which an ‘Exorcist’ style keyboard intro before developing into a full on, up tempo but, at the same time, quite intricate, track with Dioesque vocals from ‘Breed’. The next couple of tracks, 'Dominion 5' and 'Take One' continue in the same vein - and herein lies, in my opinion at least, the downside of this album. With the exception of 'Night Touches You', which is a slower, more measured cut, and therefore the standout track on the album, the tracks tend to blur into each other. The song lengths are fairly uniform (there's a minute and a half's difference between the shortest and longest tracks) and they are somewhat formulaic in approach. I think at least a couple of the tracks could have been allowed to develop with perhaps some 'light and shade' introduced into the album’s overall make up. Having said that, if you take each song in isolation, they are all well crafted and there's little to fault in term of the technical abilities on display. As such, this is an album that I could put on my mp3 player, put it on random and enjoy each track for what it is as and when it appears!

LABEL:

FORMAT:

Blistering Records

Album

TABULA RASA

Review by Dave Uphill

RUNNING TIME:

40:54

RELEASE DATE:

21st April 2009

TRACK LISTING

1) Sweet Dreams of Madness
2) Dominion 5
3) Take One
4) Tabula Rasa
5) Night Touches You
6) Tabula Rasa Pt. II (Nothing At All)
7) Plague Doctor
8) Master of My Dreams
9) Twisted Kind of Fate
10) All Rights Reserved

COUNTRY OF ORIGIN:

Sweden

"...the tracks tend to blur into each other...I think at least a couple of the tracks could have been allowed to develop with perhaps some 'light and shade' introduced into the album’s overall make up."