It is still amazing how many active bands there are upon Finnish grounds. Even more unbelievable is the fact how many of those are actually total bollox and still manage to ink a record deal. Bloodred Hourglass belong to the opposite, being a young and ambitious band with hell of a lot professionalism, determination and speed on the way out of the demo scapes. This speed though might have altered things for the worse now.

Let's get there step by step. BRHG have always been one of those charming, energetic youngsters, never growing tired on their journey to follow the true Metal pioneers. While sticking pretty much to a successful scheme of known Thrash 'n' Death sounds they still kept a certain spark of uniqueness and freshness to them. One can clearly feel and hear that BRHG are aiming to make progress constantly in order to snatch a deal.

This concept has worked more than fine on the last three releases, but needs a decent tuning by now, according to the motto: "More haste, less speed", which is the main problem on "Deviant Grace", and almost ruins the pleasure. If they want the listener to keep up to their speed, they either have to slow down or add an ecstacy pill to each CD. The new found groove suits them just right, since they were in desperate need of something to boost their style. It is a shame, because their sound is very professional; they have great riffs and really catchy chorus lines, but the haste and the repeatingly monotonous vocal performance of Jarkko Koukonen make it difficult to catch up and "Deviant Grace" becomes somewhat boring already after the second run. Separately played each song could be a fucking hit single and especially live they will work like hell, but if played as an entity it is a big mess one has to struggle with.

Putting out a new release each year one can tell that BRHG want to be a signed band more than anything. If they really want it, they have to slow down, spice up the vocals and add some different elements. Slow down guys, and take a breath once in a while, then killer tracks like "Victoria" can naturally unfold and be acknowledged justifiably, because you deserve nonetheless.

7,5 / 10 (7 plus 0,5 for "Victoria")

Alexandra Zischow - 31.05.2010