Biography from Last.fm
Bloodbath is a Swedish death metal supergroup formed in Stockholm in 1998 when, one evening, friends Mikael Åkerfeldt, Anders Nyström, Jonas Renkse and Dan Swanö, had the idea to play death metal in the realm of Entombed, mixed with some of the US Florida death metal scene bands. Quite simply, Bloodbath was born out of this shared admiration for quality death metal in the old style & the guys quickly realized that they could churn some ugly metal out to a pretty high standard. Read more on Last.fm
We promise (really promise!) that this will be the last lookback-at-2014 thing we post. Except maybe a podcast (and that’s a big maybe). Whatever. We’re launching yet another of our splendid genre columns today, this time with one of our long-time death metal aficionados, Rob McAuslan, taking a quick look back at the biggest things that happened (or in one case, learned about what’s coming) in the wonderfully fluffy world of death metal.
As much as If You Buy One Thing This Week is a great excuse to highlight underground releases or things that might have passed by your radar entirely, sometimes a new release with a higher profile comes along that we just have to endorse. Grand Morbid Funeral by Bloodbath, is one such recommendation.
When Mikael Åkerfeldt announced his intention to step down as vocalist of Swedish death metal supergroup titans Bloodbath, we feared the worst. Sure, Åkerfeldt was done with the death growls and was happy wearing lots of corduroy and disappearing down the Prog hole, but the hole he left was still pretty bloody massive.
Then the news came out that his replacement was to be none other than Paradise Lost’s Nick Holmes. Suddenly we were more excited about Bloodbath than we thought it was possible to be. Anyone who has ever heard those early PL records knows just what Nick Holmes is capable of when it comes to harsh vocals – Grand Morbid Funeral shows us that he’s lost none of that rub come 2015. Which is why we got him on the phone and asked him to break down just how this whole wonderful hook-up came about.
Today is the 37th birthday of Christian Älvestam. What’s that? You don’t recognise the name of the vocalist of more than a dozen metal bands? Who’s done guest vocal spots for everyone from Bloodbath to Demon Hunter? The former frontman of Scar Symmetry? No? Well, in that case, this week’s Sunday Spotify Slaylist is going to be something of an education for you.
It’s time for another Thrash Hits festival splash page – and this time for the UK’s heaviest festival, Bloodstock Open Air. We’ll be gathering all of our Bloodstock Open Air 2010 coverage from the weekend on this here post, so make sure you bookmark it as it’s all you’re going to need.
Bloodbath’s Sunday night set was Mikael Akerfeldt’s second performance of the weekend at Bloodstock Open Air 2010. Still, I guess if we were a member of a kickass Scandanavian supergroup like Bloodbath as well as having a day job in Opeth, we’d be willing to put in a bit of overtime too.
When some festivals announce “exclusive” bands, we know to take it with a pinch of salt. When Bloodstock Open Air announces an exclusive performance, you know it’s the real deal – after all, Reading & Leeds aren’t about to try to muscle in on Gorgoroth and Bloodbath, now are they?