I’m not going to bother delving into the supergroup status of Sweden’s Bloodbath. If you’re on this site, you know what the band is all about. This is the band’s third release this year after the terrific Live album, The Waken Carnage and the ep Unblessing the Purity. Now I loved that live album and thought it a terrific collection of the band’s finest moments and was really looking forward to this new album. However, the problem with the album is the same as with all of their full length releases.

Bloodbath has consistently failed to deliver that knockout punch on their albums. Sure, there are some great songs but overall their albums have been inconsistent. It’s the same story with The Fathomless Mastery. There are some terrific songs like Slaughtering the Will to Live which harks back to the glory days of Swedish death metal and the truly awesome Treasonous which seems like a slight departure for the band, while on the superb Iesous they sound like a completely different band with it’s opening riff and very groove oriented direction. The songs on the album also tend to go more towards American death metal than the Swedish style of old with Deicide and Morbid angel coming across in the songs.

The songs are also let down to a certain degree by the glossy and clean production. There’s no dirt underneath the fingernails of this album. The guitars sound smooth and overall the whole sound is sterilized. Not something I want from my death metal. On the plus side, Mikael Åkerfeldt’s vocals are terrific and the drumming from Martin "Axe" Axenrot is top class.

At the end of the day, I don’t think too many fans of the genre are going to be complaining about The Fathomless Mastery. It’s a solid death metal album and while it may not bring anything new or memorable to the genre, it is a slight departure for the band and a walk into newer areas. However, the problem is that like all of their studio albums; it’s merely decent and solid rather than the awesome death metal that they hinted at on The Waken Carnage .



Label - Peaceville Records
Year of Release - 2008