Score: 88/100. Gothic/ Progressive Metal act By Blood Alone (which now consists of singer Melynda “Cruella” Amann, guitarist John Graveside, keyboardist Jenny Wiliamson, bassist Jack Doran, and drummer Runtt…the latter replacing original sticksman John Hoerner -whom wanted to concentrate on his nursing school studies- in Autumn 2005) was founded in Portland (Maine…of all places!) during 2004, had their debut gig (immediately a headliner act, no less) in October of that same year, and released their 4-track Eternally EP midways the year after.

Renowned for sounding like no other band in their town and leaving their audiences in a state of awed appreciation during and after gigs, BBA soon started spreading their area of influence throughout the complete New England region (for those interested, this includes the states Maine, Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont…or, in plain language, the complete North-East of the US) and, enthoused by people’s reactions to their music, spent time in two Maine studios from January to April 2007 to record their full-length debut Seas Of Blood (re-recording the track “Deny Yourself” off their EP and adding 7 new tracks to make for a 50-minute album). Following the mixing in June, the album was released a couple of months later through the Jericho Hill Records imprint. To top things off, the album was given additional distribution through Metal specialist label Relapse…and that should give you an idea of the qualities of this band! So what happened? Why haven’t we heard about the breakthrough of this band? Why are they now promoting themselves with that same 2007 album? The fact stands that singer Cruella was diagnosed with breast cancer (had an operation in August 2007 & started chemotherapy right after) just prior of a late 2007 tour that was to take the band outside the New England area, and in order to give her a fair battling chance, the tour was completely cancelled. Only towards mid 2008 did the band get on its feet and on local Maine stages again again (did their post-hiatus debut show on May 31st, at which time the band tried out the new material they had written in November-December 2007).

Meanwhile, the band had gotten high praise from local Portland weekly arts publication The Phoenix, who placed the band in their year-end Top 10 lists, first in 2005 for the EP, and then in 2007 for the full-length, and again in 2008. When the band found out in early 2009 that they had been overlooked for a nomination in the Portland Phoenix Music Awards, they called out for help from their many friends through their MySpace and eventually ended up winning TWO awards, the first in the category “Best Category Defying Act”, and the second for “Best Female Vocalist”!

Okay, enough praise, now back to the music! When listening to the 8-track album (6 of which you can hear at the band’s MySpace page) you’ll find the band to be quite diverse in their approach of songs! While the band will stand proud to be compared to the liikes of Nightwish and Kamelot, theirs is a wider spectrum which sets ‘em apart from those examples and inspiration sources (other influencial bands include The Damned, Mercyful Fate, Christian Death, Bauhaus, Jethro Tull, and Within Temptation –whom are cited as being the most influencial in BBA’s formation). Album opener “Serpentarius” is one of the longer tracks on the album (7 ½ minutes’ length) and has the atmospheric keyboards backed with violin sounds (induced onto the album by producer Steve La Cerra, whom also worked on the EP) for a track that starts off in fairly decent “heaviness”, but gets a rather “classic” passage to boot towards the end. The ensuing “Wants Me Dead” has the violins dropped and the keyboards replaced by a spooky 60’s B-movie Horror movie organ for a somewhat shorter track (still a good 4:20). The ensuing song throws the musical approach (which up til now was typified by the heavy guitars), for a more acoustic and lyrically macabre approach, where Cruella is accompanied only by piano, violins, and some sparce percussion. The spooky organ returns to support the heavy guitars in the tracks “Nidhogg”, “Lovely Lies”, and the re-recorded version of “Deny Yourself”, but is exchanged for piano on the album’s title track and album closing song “Little Lady Lillit”, the latter a nearly acoustic BBA version (the guitar remains etheric, and doesn’t go really into “heavy” mode) of the childish nursery lullaby (the cruelty of privileged children) with dual female vocals (I’m sure thekeyboardist helps out here)! Anyway, you really need to check it out for yourself (at myspace.com/bybloodalone) because descriptions, however elaborate, will never do justice to this band’s dark and somewhat unique approach of Gothic Progressive Metal. As mentioned earlier, the band have already a completely new set of songs to build a new album on, and I, for one, am definitely curious as to what evolutions the band may have gone through!