BONDED BY BLOOD – Exiled to Earth CD review

BONDED BY BLOOD – Exiled to Earth CD
Earache Records

One of the more promising bands of the Thrash Revival decides for their sophomore release to make a concept album. There’s nothing wrong with these types of albums as long as you have a decent concept to work with. These Californians came up with the concept of Earth in the future, a dominating alien race and human warriors fighting for freedom. Ok so my first guess is that they didn’t come up with this idea by passing around an L. Ron Hubbard novel on the touring bus. I say they got it from one of the tons of video games out now with this type of scenario. I’m not into video games but I’ve read plenty of science fiction and by those standards this concept has been done so many times that it’s an insult to most people’s intelligence.

When this band’s debut came out Thrash fans gave them a pass on their choice of a band name because their music was decent. What has kept the naysayers of the Thrash Revival at bay was that half of the bands released pretty good follow-ups. Unfortunately BONDED BY BLOOD has not done that with Exiled to Earth. I’m guessing the argument for this will be that people are tired of the silly Thrash themed albums which bands like EVILE produce. Well sure who isn’t? So the next best idea you could come up with was to base your album on something that only lonely guys who sit at home on Friday nights playing X-Box will appreciate. Pardon the pun but you really alienated your fan base with that generic idea. There is a good side since this will sell well in Germany where fantasy metal is king. They could tour this album playing it beginning to end as long as there’s plenty of concert seating. In the future, if they have one, the band can pull a RUSH and do it as a melody.

Musically it doesn’t get any better. I never noticed it on their debut but on here the pitch of Jose Barrales’ vocals can be annoying. The background vocals/shouts are really pathetic as if they were recorded in the janitor’s closet. There is absolutely no fuckin bass on here except for the title cut. I think they only used the guy for photo ops. If there’s a good thing on here it’s the clean solos and a few non recycled riffs which cut through the boredom on each song. You gotta give credit to guitarists Alex Lee and Juan Juarez for just keeping this interesting enough that it doesn’t become a skeet target. “Desolate Future” is probably the best cut on here thanks to those two and should be part of their live set. I’d predict a few more but I don’t want to come off sounding like the name of another band’s concept album and yeah I thought that one was sub par as well. Exiled to Earth might not be a turd but with three quarter’s of it being in the toilet I found its ability to float disappointing.

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