Score: 7.9/10. You know you’re onto a winner when you recieve an e-mail from John Graveside of By Blood Alone. Pseudonym or not, that’s a damn good name to have in the music business, where the signal to noise ratio routinely favors the latter. But as they say, money talks and bullshit walks. By Blood Alone may remain steadfast in their commanding, dense and challenging first effort, Seas of Blood. This is gothic metal eschewing traditional, generic themes and patterns and taking a route less traveled – one across the merciless ocean, gathering melodies and textures from lands afar much like a spice merchant of the turbulent Imperial age.

Seas of Blood most certainly succeeds in evoking a maritime feel in their music, be it vast crunchy verses countered by swaying, undulating passages in “Serpentarius”, or a wall of pulsing 70s style synths and galloping riffs ala the classic era of Iron Maiden, flowing effortlessly into thankfully more conceptual, rather than self-indulgent soloing in “Wants Me Dead”. The album strikes me immediately like a confluence of Tristania and Iron Maiden playing classic 70s prog-infused Celtic (or even Gaelic) melodies. In “Undead Friend”, they surprise by offering a sombre, minimalistic piano-driven track that reminds me at least of dark cabaret acts such as The Dresden Dolls (possibly because vocalist Cruella shares Amanda Palmer’s range but adds more to the table with her projection) which segues into sweeping strokes of gothic melody and tender flourishes.

This album is certainly takes to keeping one guessing, taking the Queensryche approach to progressive metal by shoring up their songwriting with sublety instead of show, unlike the epic wankfests of Dream Theater. Their songs take on an extra dimension, such as the Gaelic inspired “Nidhogg” which grooves a bit like one of Thin Lizzy’s more homeland-inspired tracks. Their basslines are also much more involving than I thought they would be, as they take the lead in certain sections but the poor mixing and thin production detracts from its intended forcefulness. This is a major issue, unfortunately; I had to turn the disc up many times to make sense of the intricate and multifaceted soundscape they were attempting to present, especially evident in the orchestrally-inspired “Deny Yourself”. (Although the silly “shanty” of “Little Lady Lillit” was a nice cheeky surprise at the end, though; but methinks it has more humor to it when played live than put on this record, however.)

Insofar as conceptual metal albums go, this one does seem to lag just behind the classics. Most of it is rather downtempo and relies on drawn out and very gradual and elliptic riffing, such as on the rockier “Lovely Lies” which, if compressed into about half of its eight minute running time would make for a satisfying gothic “radio-friendly” rock song. Seas of Blood is for fans who can be patient with their metal; who enjoy scenery rather than action such as Mastodon or, for a more pertinent example, older Paradise Lost or My Dying Bride. This was by all means ambitious and By Blood Alone have returned from their maiden (full length) voyage mostly very successfully. It’s consistent and intelligent, but lacks decent production and overall drive to keep one gripped until the very end.

Standouts: Serpentarius, Undead Friend, Nidhogg”