Blodorn - S/T - Review

Blodorn successfully create what a lot of bands can’t, when they try to play post sludge. This form of expression is unique in one very specific way. It must feel massive and absolute. If the feeling of despair comes across as the struggle of an individual, then it fails. This type of music is not about the inner struggles and pains that a human endures in life. It is about the aftermath of a global destruction. It is about deserted urban landscapes and the complete absence of humans. Buildings collapsing; nature taking over; wild animals roaming the streets of Berlin or Athens or New York. It has to convey the feeling that civilization used to exist but is now just a myth. A myth that is not written in books, it is not spoken of between the last few remaining members of our species, but it is engraved on the unburied corpses, on the abandoned factories, on the rust that is covering the industrial areas, on the water that is dripping through the cracked concrete of skyscrapers and on the rats that are now living on the surface. It has to drain you from life and allow you to feel the aloneness, the insignificance, the majesty of life that exceeds man and forever will.

This is what Blodorn achieve in their first EP. In two songs of massive and absolute despair, oblivion and loss that are called “Birth” and “Death”, Blodorn create a painting between the times of man and nature, where the traces are still there, but will soon be forgotten. Maybe, in a hundred thousand years from now, a new species will find these relics and will speak about a time where mythical beings lived on earth and created giant and complex societal structures and fake gods but they succumbed under their arrogance and their greed. They will speak of beings that invented a place called hell and then did everything they could to bring it to life. Could it be that art can convey humility through the majestic? Maybe! It feels that way.

Blodorn are at their beginning, with a release of a single in 2014, called “Valhalla” and this EP and they are good at what they do. If they continue on this road we may listen to a fantastic full length in the future. But for now, let us experience the absolute and holistic despair of their debut EP.