It’s become increasingly impossible to look at the world without revolting in complete disgust. Sure, there are countless amazing views and destinations all over the globe that are worth visiting and researching, things that can rob you of your breath. Sadly, there are so many people in this world choking it to death and making a mockery of safety and sensitivity that it makes you forget.
Belgian black metal crushers Wiegedood clearly have had their share of the bullshit, and on their ultra-violent fourth record “There’s Always Blood at the End of the Road,” they make it abundantly clear they’re clean out of fucks. I mean toward society at large. As for the music, they care as much as ever as they unleash something that can be stitched along with their “De Doden Hebben Het Goed” trilogy but also stands far apart from an intensity standpoint. The band—guitarist/vocalist Levy Seynaeve, guitarist Gilles Demolder, drummer Wim Coppers—identify with and spread the filth and loathing humanity has become unstoppable at fostering and reveals it for what it is. It’s a burst of savagery that rarely relents, a record that feels like a preemptive assault on whoever wants to keep stirring the pot and making our existence a miserable experience.
“FN SCAR 16” starts the record and just sucks all the air from the room with a wild howl and as maniacal pace that rambles and punishes, spiraling into the earth. Daring shrieks rain down as the playing dizzies, chaos rampages, and the guitars burst, stabbing the song shut. “And in Old Salamano’s Room, the Dog Whimpered Softly” is blinding and sudden, guitars chugging wildly, crazed howls stirring int the darkness as the attack spreads. There’s blood in your mouth as voices warble, and the guitars melts away and into “Noblesse Oblige/Richesse Oblige” that’s disorienting right from the start. Howls crush as the guitars cause tingling in your extremities, adding scrapes as the song reaches a frenzied scrape. Your mind wanders when the melodies trickle with cold water, the drums turn everything to dust, and the organ-grinding assault captures you and powders your bones. “Until It Is Not” teases before it tears itself open at the chest, babbling blood and guts in your path as the playing absolutely swarms. The burning suddenly halts only to restart on the other side, racing toward exists, situated in its own vibrations and flooding noises.
“Now Will Always Be” is the longest track on the record, an 8:17-long bruiser that slowly dawns before throat-buzzing singing echoes the track’s title, warping your brain. There’s a lot of push and pull with the dynamics, especially the vocals that sink teeth into your limbs, and the music also finds ways to crush and eat into your psyche. All of that finally climaxes in the final moments where the sparks jolt and leave streaks of light in your eyes. “Wade” is a short instrumental piece containing rough acoustics and old timey melodies, and then it’s into “Nuages” that is thunderous from the start, racing toward oblivion. Frenzied shrieks rush you as the playing reaches into the stratosphere, sending your mind soaring as the insanity leaks out as black tears. “Theft and Begging” starts amid a flurry of offense as war-torn blistering makes it impossible to center yourself, angling into black metal tyranny. The playing tears away faces, bustling into temporary quiet that settles in, later reawakening as the final blows add to the bruising. “Carousel” is the closer, heating up and spreading as the throat singing returns, and the heaviness weighs you down. The playing drills into the earth, igniting again and spewing molten rock, ending with a gasp of tornadic drama that draws everything into a hole in the sky.
Wiegedood have taken a violent turn on “There’s Always Blood at the End of the Road,” a record that basks in, rolls over, and redistributes the filth in which we’re all drowning. This is the most violent and uncompromising record this band has released so far, and it takes a few visits just to get your head around this thing, provided you survive each attack. This is black metal that fears no boundaries, takes whatever chances it deems necessary, and rips every part of your sanity and well-being to shreds.
For more on the band, go here: https://www.facebook.com/wiegedood
To buy the album, go here: https://wiegedood.lnk.to/TheresAlwaysBloodAtTheEndOfTheRoad
For more on the label, go here: https://www.facebook.com/centurymedia/
Meat Mead Metal 