Monday, August 11, 2008

PATHOGEN: Bloodline


Produced by Aiden Barton
Released: 2005

For a band that seems to have such a hard time keeping a line-up together Bloodline is a mightily impressive album from Perth's Pathogen. Melodic death metal bands are a dime-a-dozen these days, but this is one of those who stand out simply because they still play it in the way that made the form so popular in the first place.

Groove-laden breakdowns, clean melodic vocals and blatant leaning toward hardcore have no place here. Bloodline is crunchy, headbanging death metal with savage melodies from start to finish, broken up only occasionally by a well-crafted and well-timed acoustic passage like the sort of thing In Flames used to do when they were still relevant. This is ten years' worth of frustration wrapped up into one hour-long package of brutality. Many of the songs on here are almost as old as the band itself--at least seven of them are from Pathogen's 96 and 97 demos--but here they've been reworked and given a modern sound with a beefy, crisp production that makes them stand strong alongside the newer tracks.

"Identity Theft" is a true highlight, a monster that almost threatens to to dwarf the rest of the material almost immediately, but fortunately for Pathogen the rest of the songs are just about as good and Bloodline doesn't really fall down anywhere. From the artwork to the closing notes of the last track (named, like the first, simply with an ellipsis) this is a killer album of killer Australian metal.


  1. ...
  2. Identity Theft
  3. Beyond Repent
  4. Bleeding Eye
  5. Fallen Kind
  6. Shallow
  7. Eviscerated
  8. C.O.W.
  9. Nightfall
  10. Bleed My Soul (Pt. I)
  11. Warchild
  12. Tyranny of Hatred
  13. ...

Rating: 90%

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