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By Blood Alone: Eternally
By Blood Alone - Eternally - [Jericho Hill Records]

2007-01-19

"Eternally", a debut EP by Portland's By Blood Alone, was recorded and releases sometime in 2005, and a copy of it since found it's way to my pile, and quite rightfully, was overlooked. All four songs in this gothicly themed EP demonstrate why some bands remain anonymous.

Opening with cheep 80's sounding keyboards and overall basic guitar-bass-drums lines, "Every Night" isn't much of a strong opener and will most likely bring to mind smoky clubs with platinum-short-haired-shoulder-padded-girls. Some improvement comes with the minimalist drums beats, mellow guitar and the vocalist's bleak female voice on the following track, carrying this EP's title, and the fact the keys take a back stand leaves enough room for John Graveside's guitar to become rightfully prominent. Darker vibes come with "Darkman", which is almost as slow as doom metal and shows a smarter use of background string effects keyboard, as well as clean piano parts cleaving through the foggy atmosphere of this track. "Deny Yourself", the closing track, is much more upbeat and utterly different from all we've heard from By Blood Alone so far – with an almost power metal-esque mid-pace, vintage Deep Purple-like keyboards and actual energy from the oh so agonized vocalist Cruella.

Comparisons to November's Doom and even Draconian have been made by some, but with no apparent reason. The only comparison right here would be "that band you see on a 'young bands night', where only their friends (who usually rather listen to what's on the radio) are excited about the band's preformence..." - I mean, who'd tell his friends their band is lame when he/she wants to stay friends with them? Regardless that in mind, not all the blame for this EP should be put on the band, but also at producer Steve La Cerra (who has a reputation of not only a producer but also an actual musician), who gave this EP such a MIDI quality as opposed to being low-fi, or being intentionally underproduced), with sound as flat as 12-year old that certainly doesn't go hand in hand with goth metal.

To be honest, I can't see why this EP was released, and I don't wanna be mean or anything – it's just that investing time and money on a completely mediocre debut EP seems to be somewhat of a hasty choice. Mediocre bands are better off spending their time and money on rehearsing, writing, composing and hell… even mind altering substances – just as long as it gets the job done, and done right.

Ofer Vayner



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