Two years and a half after the cool debut Face The Evil, Flemish act Bliksem (which is Dutch for lightning) return with their second full length album, Gruesome Masterpiece, released via the alternative and independent German label Iron Will. The stuff lasts for fifty two minutes and was produced and mixed by Martin Furia. The band, as a matter of fact, was formed in 2007 by a handful of musicians, and it came to full force after the recruitment of (female) vocalist Peggy Meeussen, who was previously active (in both live, permanent and session activity) in acts like Scarlet Dew, Wretched Vixen or Angeli Di Pietra. But I think it is now that her vocal qualities finally come to their peak!
Anyway, Gruesome Masterpiece turns out to be a not-that-gruesome masterpiece, with Peggy being much more on the foreground than before. And that isn’t but a splendid decision, for her voice did develop and grow a lot, in positive sense. Not only is she using a wider timbre of her vocal cord capacities; in general her voice is much more firm, strong, steady and forceful.
Another nice evolution is the increased variation, i.e. that this band sort of draws its influences from not the Thrash Metal scene alone, yet from different angles too: Stoner and Occult Doom, Grunge and Punk, Heavy and Speed Metal, elements from the Seventies Rock scenes and the tradition of ‘True’ Metal… You might get the point, I think… And this is something that goes for about each single song. Every single of them has something unique, something that distinguishes this band from many colleagues all over our wonderful globe.
I think it is a great and not-to-underestimate detail that the variation is in favour of the result, especially when noticing that the result is pretty cohesive and, at the same time, well-thought. Therewithal one must pay honour to the Antwerp-based Musiccity Studio and its crew for the excellent sound quality and perfectly balanced mix of Gruesome Masterpiece. Especially massive Doom epics like Morphine Dreams (which actually is my favourite piece on the album) take their advantage out of this strong production / mix.