Receiving praise from Cult of Luna and Refused, being featured on Roadburn’s 2021 digital Redux festival and being set to play ArcTanGent festival, BLODET have made sizable waves with their dense, atmospheric take on doom. Marking their first recorded output since vocalist Hilda Heller joined in 2019, the band’s esoteric musical landscape is buoyed by quietly assured ruminations on the human condition and self across VISION’s three songs. The new offering sees the sextet build upon their sonic palette of atmospheric doom and post-metal with brooding folk and European post-hardcore sensibilites in the vein of Swans, Breach and early Amenra.
Blodet possess a familiarity for those who have long been enamoured by post-metal and post-hardcore’s more avant-garde leanings, with nods to Swans, early-Amenra and Unwound all whilst carving out their own niché and expanding on their native country’s rich history of colouring outside of genre lines. For this alone, their new offering dubbed “Vision”, is a short but vital addition to Blodet’s growing discography.
Today, we’re giving you an insight into their work through their special write-up about Swedish festival Trästockfestivalen, their inspirations, and more.
‘The River‘, the first single from Blodet’s new EP “VISION” got its first UK play on the Kerrang! Radio’s ‘Fresh Blood’ show with Alex Baker. The full EP comes out on September 24th via Church Road Records.
Words by Dennis from Blodet:
You are probably familiar with or have heard of Umeå in the north of Sweden. Home of bands like Refused, Meshuggah, and Cult of Luna, among others. Umeå has been labeled as a sort of musical capital of northern Sweden. Well, they miss one thing. The biggest all ages and free entrance music festival in Sweden (once of the whole of Europe) is located in the smaller town of Skellefteå about one and a half hours north of Umeå. Just a quick drive up the european route E4. Every year in July since 1991, with an odd year off, Trästockfestivalen – Swedish for The Woodstock Festival – has been arranged.
Many big national and international bands have played at Trästockfestivalen – The Hives, The Soundtrack of Our Lives and the before mentioned Cult of Luna, just to name a few. That’s all good, but the most important aspect of Trästockfestivalen is that any young aspiring band or musician is invited to play as long as they work at the festival. A pretty good deal to be able to perform in front of hundreds and sometimes thousands of people. As a beginner this is the perfect place to hone your skills. Or maybe get your worst show out of the way… at least that is how it was for me in the early days. Learning about how much rehearsal goes into being able to do a decent show, what a soundcheck is, how to load and unload gear. I learned everything working at Trästockfestivalen. To this day the teenagers and twenty-somethings wanting to perform and therefore working at the festival for free makes this thing go around. It’s very impressive.
This year Trästockfestivalen will be digital, but if you are a music fan and traveling through the north of Sweden next summer this is the place to go.
When Blodet started in 2014 I had already been in bands for 15 years. None of which made any kind of lasting memories. For anyone. And I guess it is hard in a small town to find the right people to share your vision.
Skellefteå is mostly famous for it’s Ice hockey team and 90’s pop group The Wannadies. So when I heard Swans 2012 album ’The Seer’ and my mind was changed – could rock music be this free? – I had a really hard time finding the people to support my quest to recreate the same kind of feeling. Playing heavy metal – yes. But free flowing, almost improvised, post-music? Good luck! Eventually I found the people and the inspiration. I looked to our neighbours in Umeå and realised that yes, it is possible to not care and just follow your heart. Especially bands like Cult of Luna and Refused have paved the way for bands going beyond the traditional. And yes, Blodet obviously was inspired by Cult of Luna to use two drummers early on (we don’t anymore) but it was always more about the attitude these bands had – and still have – that pushed me and us to do what we do.
