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The Bloodshed Summoning is the eight full-length album by German power metal act Sacred Steel. It was released in 2013, making it their first album since 2009 when they released Carnage Victory. The album contains twelve tracks by default but there are also some bonus tracks, including a cover of The Misfits’ Dig Up her Bones.
The music on The Bloodshed Summoning is most definitely at the most aggressive end of the power metal genre. Bands like Dragonforce may like to label themselves as ‘extreme power metal’ but anyone who takes that sort of thing seriously obviously hasn’t heard bands like Sacred Steel, who hit you with a hard and heavy barrage of riffs that on this album quite often move out of power metal entirely and into its sister genre of thrash metal. Gerrit P. Mutz’s vocals range from power/thrash metal standards to an aggressive snarling which combined with those riffs tells me right from the off when the band opens with Storm of Fire 1916 that they’re here to give you a right good arse kicking the way only a metal band worth their salt can do.
It’s not all full speed ahead though, the title track showcases a bit of a softer side to the album, and then gradually builds back up into what the band does best, but does feature some more laid back elements compared to what Sacred Steel had pelted your ears with up until that point. It’s still a good song, but it did showcase for me that Gerrit P. Mutz’s softer vocals didn’t leave such a good impression on me as his more direct and aggressive style. Not bad, but an acquired taste to be sure. Fortunately he mostly sticks to his more aggressive approach and with the songs to go with it there’s rarely a moment during the album that doesn’t hold my attention.
The Bloodshed Summoning is a satisfying slab of power-thrash. Not terribly innovative or anything like that, but an album like this didn’t really need to break the mould with fancy frills. It simply needed to achieve its goal, and I hear a resounding success here, with album highlights including The Darkness of Angels and Storm of Fire 1916. A great album tier rating is deserved.
83/100
(Originally written for Heavy Metal Haven (http://metaltube.freeforums.org/sacred-steel-the-bloodshed-summoning-t2805.html))