When I got the email for a band called ‘High On Blood‘, as I opened the promotional material, I was praying to myself, “Please be related to Deranged, please be related to the Swedish death metal maven from the 90s/00s, Deranged, as High On Blood was the name of a song from Deranged’s second classic 1998 album.
And lo, the death metal gods answered, and I was elated. As High On Blood is indeed a new project from former Deranged and The Forsaken members Calle Fäldt (vocals/bass) and Johan Axelsson (vocals/guitars), joined by The Forsaken‘s Nicklas Grabowski (drums).
The Bloodrite Doctrine was released last year on digital only by Regain Records, but picked up this year for a physical vinyl release, and I’m surprised that I didn’t get wind of the release and project, considering my general reverence for Deranged (and I also dig the melo-death act The Forsaken).
However, this band is not simply a Deranged clone, nor a vicious melo-death act, but a bludgeoning style of modern mid-paced death metal with more emphasis on groove and lumbering chugs (“The Blood Doctrine”, “The First Offering”, “Burn Through Flesh”), though there are some blast beats here and there that certainly recall Deranged, as heard on “Throne of the Blind”. If you enjoy bands like Blood Red Throne, Jungle Rot, Grave, Mastic Scum and Dawn of Demise, this might be for you.
Calle Fäldt has the same vocals as he did on Plainfield Cemetery and Obscenities in B-flat, so there is some familiarity there, but while not sounding completely like Deranged, there is, however, a cover of Deranged’s “Coven of Death” (from 2006’s Obscenities in B-flat), one of the band’s slower songs, so it fits High On Blood‘s overall sound.
