Blood Cult – We’re Gonna Take Your Soul Review

Being open to all the existing kinds of Metal music – and they are many, believe me – always pays off even though when they are so weird – good weird though – that it is an exercise to try to label them. I mean, sometimes it is meaningless to try to label a band as Blood Cult with their newest effort “We’re Gonna Take Your Soul.” My advise would be ‘No worries. Just enjoy the music.”

Blood Cult, the sole creation of J.R. Preston, stands as a defiant pillar in the underground metal scene. Emerging in 1994, the band has sculpted a niche sound dubbed “Redneck Black Metal,” – What the hell? – uniquely combining elements of Southern Rock, Blues, and Country/Western with the aggressive tones of black metal. This fusion not only defines their sonic identity but also reflects the band’s deep roots in the lore and landscape of rural America. I would say a very peculiar blend the dude did here.

“We’re Gonna Take Your Soul” is an ungodly mix of Psychedelic Rock, Heavy Rock, and Old School Heavy Metal with a prone to the occult. I said a prone because the real intent of the band is to flirt with the occult, but in order to be critical as Metal music has always been since the beginning of Metal times. Musicwise, Blood Cult recreate the musical atmosphere of the late 1960’s adding elements of late 1970’s and early 1980’s. The band does it by not blending the elements into the songs, which would be nice as a matter of speaking, but by writing independent songs with the aforementioned elements. So, the idea of the album is to be a real album from which the can fan enjoy this dying experience of listening to a complete album.

“We’re Gonna Take Your Soul” welcomes the fan with an open and devilish crackling followed by a guitar phrasing so typical of the 1960’s. All of this is embellished by a typical 1960’s keyboard that doubles the guitar lines. I must say I love this effect. “Demon Seed” is a very critical song, as it is the album, to all religious extremes. “No Escape From Rock” pledges the band’s fervor for Rock with Ten Years After inspired guitar leads. The comes tittle track “We’re Gonna Take Your Soul” with a very simple, but efective and known guitar riff that sounds takes from Mötley Crüe’s “Shout at the Devil” era, but darker, much darker. It is the most Metal song of the album when the band pledges their alleagiance to Metal music. My guess is that it is a honest one. It is here vocalist and multi-instrumentalist J.R. Preston, tries his a la King Diamond falsettos. Well, it sounds to me they worked pretty fine. “I’ll Never Go Away” may be the track that goes deeper into the 1960’s culture and music as its initial guitar riff reminded me a lot of Janis Joplin’s “Piece of My Heart” and Grand Funk Railroad “We’re an American Band” keyboards.

As I said before, in “We’re Gonna Take Your Soul” prevails the album culture, so it was planned to be heard in full, not independent and sole tracks as it is the word now. If I had heard “Love,” and its alternative 1980’s post-punk first, for instance, I would have ruled out the album. It will be a great surprise to the fans that like the style.

Blood Cult “We’re Gonna Take Your Soul” will be released on February 14th.

Tracklisting:

01. Demon Seed
02. No Escape From Rock
03. We’re Gonna Take Your Soul
04. I’ll Never Go Away
05. Bully
06. Playground Creeper
07. The Devil’s Child
08. In The Full Moon
09. Love

Watch “We’re Gonna Take Your Soul” official lyric video here: