BLOEDMAAN – Castle Inside the Eclipse

Boasting some incredibly evocative and darkly fascinating artwork and housed in a beautiful digipak, this deeply atmospheric and melodically strong effort by Bloedmaan is nothing short of fantastic and I am finding it hard to believe that it is the intriguing entity’s debut album. By Odin, this is some fucking great stuff from beginning to end and it simply oozes quality all the way through, and the cool thing is that it never outstays its welcome in that it clocks in at 29 minutes. Concise yet perfectly capable of getting its morose and solemn message across in a short span of time – what could be better?! In some ways, it definitely veers towards mid-to-late nineties Scandinavian black metal in terms of tone and style but at the same time there is so much more to its five compositions than that, and these are no mere throwbacks to a bygone era or a rehashing of old and worn-out ideas. This fiery burst of melancholy actually gives me the chills.  

Castle Inside the Eclipse is a memorable set of tunes that recalls some of the best melodic black metal from Sweden without sounding like mere clone or a cheap carbon copy of any of the genre’s pioneers – Bloedmaan’s brand of gloomy and richly textured music is simply too personal and passionate for that. Yes, this fierce strike of excellence is just what I needed this week, and I am ridiculously curious as to what the future holds for this one-man band (Ronarg, who you may or may not know from Antzaat and Ars Veneficium, is masterminding the operation). You really ought to get your hands on the CD version due to the classy artwork, and there is something special about holding this gem in one’s hands, studying the lyrics, absorbing the visuals aspects of the release (including the small poster that is included), and letting the entire thing transport one to worlds that lie beyond the hidden sphere.