Knowing people makes life interesting. Proof of this was meeting Donald Tardy again March 4^th 2010 prior to the Obituary show in Utrecht. Donald and I go back some 20 odd years and apart from other things we talked about the Tardy Brothers album ‘Bloodline’ of which he was (and is) very proud. Donald assured me to get hold of a copy and I wouldn’t be disappointed. Being one of the good guys I kept my promise and bought the album that same evening.

To keep things short: I wasn’t disappointed at all…I was pleasantly surprised! With the core of Obituary you can expect a death metal album, and that’s exactly what it is. Or, maybe more than that.

The opening duo ‘Bring you down’ and title track ‘Bloodline’ swing like an utter and invite for enormous sing-a-longs. Death-Metal fit for an arena. ‘I’m Alive’ is of a total different league. Nice rhythm bends and the complete madness of John T’s screams combined with the King Diamondesque solos of Ralph Santolla make this a classic to be. After these three mid-paced songs the Tardy Bro’s go full-speed ahead in ‘Deep Down’. After this song I looked back … and found my place trashed. Some decent shredding going on here as well, as you can hear in to the trade offs. To soothe the ears the Tardies came up with an instrumental (Death-Metal) ballad ‘Wired’. Not the strongest song in the album (the sustained guitar got on my nerves) but a good reason to come back twice as hard with ‘Fate’s Call’. Raise your fist and yell I’d say! Quite a remarkable song as well, due to the fact that you can’t get it out of your head for days. People will look weird when you start yelling ‘FATE’S CALL’ in their face just like that. Listen to the songs and you’ll understand. Nearing the end of the album ‘Eternal Lies’ follows. The first few spins I thought the songs was rather disappointing, but after those first rounds it got to me. Once you get it it’s just like ‘I’m Alive’: bloody great! Solo guitarist Jerry Tidwell hits the stage in full light with ‘Scream Descendent’. Together with Ralph’s acoustic guitar work and the mostly instrumental structure a fine piece of work. The album closes too soon with ‘Fade Away’. Another heavy mid paced sledgehammer of a song where John and Donald give it their best one last time.

All in all I consider ‘Bloodline’ a tremendous album that will be in the player a lot, although I’ll skip ‘Wired’ from time to time. I transferred the album to my MP3 player as well, but it then (at 192KB) lacks the depth of the original (so forget getting it through a torrent!). Hands down to Donald and John for this masterpiece, I’m eager to hear the new stuff that’s coming!

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