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BLOOD CULT “We’re Gonna Take Your Soul”
BLOOD CULT “We’re Gonna Take Your Soul”
By Dr. Abner Mality
This may be hard to believe, but I didn’t grow up in a Central European castle or some sort of underground tomb. Nope, the Good Doctor spent his childhood amid the cornfields of rural Illinois. So I have that in common with the master mind behind BLOOD CULT, J.R. Preston. J.R. hails from the tiny Central Illinois village of Moweaqua...that’s a place even I never heard of and I know a lot of small Illinois towns, like Argo Fay and Creston.
Growing up in such an environment leads to a unique form of rural metal, which is what we have with BLOOD CULT. They call it ‘redneck black metal”, but expect something a lot closer to DANZIG than anything from the glaciers of Northern Europe. There is no tremolo sweeping or dungeon synth here, BLOOD CULT is a kind of ragged low fi heavy metal with blues and rockabilly elements. It is a kind of unique and intriguing listen, but honestly, there are a lot of flaws here as well. Which maybe is the way Preston planned it….he sounds like an interesting guy for sure.
He handles just about everything himself. Everything is deliberately rough around the edges, including the production and there’s no “technical” edge to the music at all. It’s hard, dark, heavy metal rock n roll. Preston has a polarizing vocal approach which is nasal and sometimes very high pitched and whiny. I actually enjoy the 70’s inspired approach he uses on “No Escape From Rock” and “The Devil’s Child”. The best tracks are those that focus on classic early 80’s riffs, like the title track and the album’s best cut, “The Devil’s Child”, which rocks like hell.
Unfortunately, Preston feels the need to inject a tinny, cheesy synth into tunes that do much better without. The opening track “Demon Seed” is practically ruined by the childish, tweedly synth. The only cut where the synth work sounds appropriately eerie is “Love”, where it has a haunting sound. “Playground Creeper” and “In The Full Moon” are two of the better and heavier tracks, while “Bully” and “I’ll Never Go Away” are just kind of “there”. There’s a theme of “Satanic Panic” and “stranger danger” running through the album that is thematically pretty interesting.
Kind of a mixed bag here, but the feeling of “outsider” music gives this a lot of intrigue. And I have to give props to a fellow “child of the cornfield”.
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