A few days ago while perusing Bandcamp's pages for new music we chanced upon an album called "Farewell" (Fucking Kill Records) by a German outfit going by the name Blood Specter and we might well have scrolled past this gem had it not been for two things, the first of those things being its solemn yet intriguing artwork depicting what looked like a Elizabethan era woman overlooking a cemetery, the second being the bands use of the word "specter" over the more common usage of "spectre" in their name. Now we are not saying that every album graced by striking artwork is going to turn out to be a diamond or that every band utilizing unusual spelling in their name are going to deliver quality music, we are just saying that in this case those things combined to compel us to investigate further. What we found was a band with a sound that drew from the wells of traditional and epic doom but at the same time had a feel and sound that was markedly different. Desert Psychlist is not sure if that "difference" stemmed from Blood Specter's members having had musical backgrounds in the fields of black metal, punk and progressive metal but we are guessing that it may have a bearing.
#Blood Scepter's line up at the time of recording "Farewell" consisted of Marvin Diekmännken (lead guitar); Tobias Laufkötter (drums); Timm Mädler (rhythm guitar): Manuel Peiler (bass) and Rebecca Möller (vocals) however after the recording of "Farewell" Diekmännken decided to leave the band (hence the albums title) a move that has seen Laufkötter now move up to guitar duties and in turn has seen Andreas Fiedler joining the band as their new drummer
"Farewell" begins with the bands namesake tune "Blood Specter" a song that begins dank dark and atmospheric and more or less remains in that mode for its duration with deliciously thick varieties of crunching guitar and bass riffage combining with an equal variety of thundering rhythms to create an ever shifting platform of blackened doomic groove for Möller to decorate with a jaw-dropping array of vocal tones, tones that range from soaring banshee like wails to throat tearing harshness and all stops in-between, it's damn impressive stuff! Following number "Rage Fatigue" for its most part sits musically in the canon of epic doom but having said that it is not hard to hear the bands black metal and prog influences rising to the surface here and there, something that is mostly evident in its drumming, having said that it is also not hard to hear influences of old school heavy metal and NWOBHM creeping in either especially when Diekmännken and Mädler pair up for a spot of Judas Priest/Iron Maiden like guitar harmonizing anchored by Peiler's galloping bass lines. Needless to say this also features another faultless vocal display from Möller. "The Love That Once Was" sees Blood Scepter dipping their toes into torch song territories and doing so with some style, Möller tailoring her vocal to match the songs initial folk/occult rock dynamics then shifting gears up into the realms of soaring ethereality as the song increases in both volume and musical intensity. Things get a little gnarlier on next track "Griefbearer", but not overly so, much like "Rage Fatigue" the song mixes its doom with essences and elements of old school metal and hard rock along with aspects that some might consider lean towards alternative, the song also boasts a killer vocal melody. Blood Scepter brings things to a close with "Silent Calendar" a song that sees the band mixing into their enticing pot·pourri of heavy, black, doom and prog metals healthy pinches of goth-rock atmospherics and post metal texturing, again its not a particularly heavy song but then Blood Specter are a band far more concerned with content than they are weight.
© 2025 Frazer Jones
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