Album Review: "Blood of the Fall" by Bedowyn

Blood of the Fall

There was a time before iTunes, before Pirate Bay, and, yes, before Napster.

In those days, these things called albums were created. That wonderful, amazing, and beautiful era lasted from the early 60's all the way up until about 1999...or perhaps a bit later.

We all know this isn't one of those new music sucks safe spaces on the internet, and we rail against that, but there was something about those days that was better.

Artists made albums.

Before the advent of the CD, as James Leg put it, it's two sides. So it was basically two albums. Two stories. Two giant paintings. Now...so many bands don't make albums, but a collection of songs. Running order, timbre, tone, these things are meaningless because the listeners are just going to listen on shuffle anyway....

Bedowyn

Meet the formerly indie metal band, Bedowyn, whose 2015 album, Blood of the Fall, is now getting the proper label treatment from Via Nocturna.

It's hard to say where in the broad heavy metal spectrum Bedowyn fall, but they're on the spectrum.

The vocals range from Baroness and Wolf Council, etc to High On Fire and Twingiant and all points in between.

The guitars are clean, dirty, and never overly high gain.

The drums are glassy and relentless.

The lead guitar on this album is eclectic, but all of the solos have a single thing in common: an impeccable use of melody. There's no shred or look at me. It all plays to the song.

Where Bedowyn succeeds is their making of an album. Not that this is a concept record, to my knowledge, but from the first track, there's a beginning, a middle, and an ending.

These songs are not filled with hooks, but they certainly drew me in, start to finish.

Release: 5/27/16
Genre: Metal
Label: Via Nocturna
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