BLOOD & BANJOS — Blood & Banjos (review)

BLOOD & BANJOS — Blood & Banjos album cover Album · 2014 · Melodic Metalcore Buy this album from MMA partners
3/5 ·
siLLy puPPy
Although metal purists may hate it, this aggressive bastard child of various rock genres has become quite the fertile mongrel of disparate non-metal genres for decades now with almost every conceivable non-metal genre making at least a brief appearance somewhere throughout the decades however when you think of good old-fashioned bluegrass music incorporated into the metal music context, things just start to feel like they’ve gone completely astray!

Well it’s true that atmospheric black metal act Panopticon struck a chord with metalheads with the 2012 bluegrass / metal hybrid album “Kentucky” but for the most part, these two opposing forces remain at odds. Here’s another attempt to fuse these two demanding styles of musical mastership by a band called BLOOD & BANJOS that formed in Cheboygan, Michigan in 2012 by Marc Jacob Hudson (drums, piano), Bella Blasko (banjo, mandolin, harmonica, cello, vocals) and Adam Ward (guitar, bass, vocals).

This band claims to be an experiment that juxtaposes two contrasting musical styles in a single narrative and narrates the tale of a man named Abram Stone who is tricked by the devil into murdering his own family and commences with the residents of the town he lives in desiring to bring him to justice. The results of this mishmash of traditional Appalachian America in tandem with random outbursts of messy metalcore is very much a mixed bag.

This narrative tale takes place with ten tracks at the average album running time of 43 minutes. A great deal of the experience is old-time bluegrass and traditional American folk songs with different metal styles peeking in and out ranging from melodic traditional classic heavy metal sounds to the more bombastic metalcore outbursts however it all seems very random and does nothing to emphasize the tale at least from what i can distinguish. What sounds of interest on paper doesn’t really translate into the cohesive fusional styles that i would hope to experience. Added to the mystery, the band is listed as DAY on its Bandcamp page with only the album listed as BLOOD & BANJOS but whatever!

While it’s always cool to hear metal songs covered by banjo players (the internet is filled with them) when it comes to crafting a viable cozy fusion of bluegrass and any metal stylistic approach, i just haven’t heard anybody pull it off in a convincing manner and although this album was obviously a labor of love that resulted in countless hours of painstaking work, it ultimately just sounds gimmicky with not only lackluster bluegrass performances but less than satisfying metal heft as well. In the end i just feel the lofty goal was not exceeded by the performances. Worth a listen but no a revisit.
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