Two years on from the release of their acclaimed third album, Nightmare Withdrawals, New Zealand based quintet Blindfolded And Led To The Woods are back, with their Prosthetic Records debut, Rejecting Obliteration, releasing on May 19th. Now in their thirteenth year, the band are seeking to rebuild themselves with their darkest and most introspective album to date, an album which looks at finding your own identity and hope outside of experiences of psychological trauma and personal hurt, navigating cycles of abuse and pain via their crushing take on progressive metal.
Across the span of these ten tracks, the listener is treated to one devastatingly raw and raucous track after another, building to form a body of work that executes its conceptual intentions effectively and powerfully; from casting a glare over dogmatic zealots on ‘Methlehem’, to exploring parental abuse on ‘Hands of Contrition’, the band are steadfast in their focus, unflinching in their execution, and surprisingly vulnerable in their art.
Of course, a great concept is only half the battle; the album requires the music to be great too, and thankfully for the band, what they have crafted on Rejecting Obliteration is exactly that. From the thunderous percussive backbone of Tim Stewart, to the monstrous vocal talents of Stace Fifield, there is a musical understanding that runs deep within this band, allowing them to use their instruments to convey the themes of each track, and the album as a whole, with incredible skill; to make your music both uncomfortable and enjoyable is a talent.
From the opening notes, Rejecting Obliteration means business, with ‘Monolith’ serves as a phenomenal opening statement, with the track transitioning cleanly between aggressive, pummelling walls of sound, and melodic passages that still harness a real guttural energy thanks to the relentless vocal. ‘Methlehem’ is a particularly fantastic track, acting as a scathing and simply brutal commentary on organised religion, packed with guitars from Stuart Henley-Minchington and Ben Atkinson that swirl around the listener like a swarm of buzzing locusts. It’s instrumentally incredible, and the lyricism, with bars such as ‘Education replaced with Mary’s bosom/Warm milk tastes better than rationality/Getting your Sunday fix’, is ruthless in its potency.
“The listener is treated to one devastatingly raw and raucous track after another, building to form a body of work that executes its conceptual intentions effectively and powerfully”
Across the span of the rest of the album, things don’t stall all too much. ‘Hallucinative Terror’ features a haunting, ambient introduction that explodes outwards into despair fuelled brutality as the band conjures up a sonic nightmare. The title track, ‘Rejecting Obliteration’, oozes a sense of desperation through the incessant, cataclysmic percussion and jittering, unsteady riffs, embracing the themes of the album perfectly; an acknowledgement of intense suffering, but a violent unwillingness to surrender to it.
‘Funeral Smiles’ is a blistering little track of pure aggression that is sure to delight those seeking some straightforward death metal fury, whilst the closing track, ‘Caustic Burns’, sees the band truly embracing their more progressive side, culminating in a harrowing exploration of the damage cycles of trauma lead to that is topped off by Fifield’s most brilliant vocal performance across the span of the album.
Throughout Rejecting Obliteration, we are treated to glimpses of the band’s more melodic side, with beautiful meandering guitar passages on tracks such as ‘Hallucinative Terror’, showcasing that the band are about more than just brutality, and the album could potentially have done with a few more of these gentler passages to break up its sheer intensity. By the time the listener gets to the final few tracks here, it can be easy to feel a little exhausted trying to endure one apocalyptic, nightmarish soundscape after another, with little recourse.
That, however, doesn’t take away from the fact that Rejecting Obliteration is overall a fantastically thought-out and executed body of art, one of deep catharsis and, beneath the darkness of the sonic landscape, one of undeniable hope. Blindfolded And Led To The Woods have shown vulnerability through their brutality, and in the process, sculpted another great moment in their history.