Artist: Tales Of Blood
Country: France
Label: Great Dane Records
Formats: CD
Year: 2024
Although French Death Metal band Tales Of Blood, in one form or another has been around since the early 1990’s, the band was totally unknown to me. Through the sales page on Discogs of one of the band’s members, I found myself on a non-working and non-updated ancient website that obviously revealed nothing. Still, my curiosity was piqued; after all, in these modern times, everything is only a few clicks away from you. And so “Breath Of Repugnance” came to me. Let’s see what’s in store.
After having heard this second album a few times, I can’t stop having a smile on my face. Not because the album is that good, nor because it is that bad. For some reason ‘Break Of Repugnance’ triggers something, it surely resonated happy vibes. I am not too sure whether that really was the intention of this French company, but still…
No. Certainly, this album is not really good. The vocals sound rather forced and even laboured, not too much unlike the faded glory of Chris Barnes, some of the drums, especially the cymbals, sound like samples (are they?), the production is not really powerful enough and at some point everything begins to sound alike. But still…
The thing that makes this album enjoyable is that Tales Of Blood take their main inspiration from an era in Death Metal that feels quite rare these days. Basically, ‘Breath Of Repugnance’ sounds like late 90’s Malevolent Creation and the first Corpsegrinder featured Cannibal Corpse albums. Needless to say, that level of brutality and great song writing is not reached, not even for a single riff. But, the intention is very clear. This is riff-driven Death Metal without tuning down those guitars to a fckn undefined blob. It might indeed not reach the highest levels, there are certainly a few solid riffs for any Death Metal fan to enjoy.
So, for the most part, ‘Breath Of Repugnance’ is a bit of a window to past times. Even the gory artwork, elegant song titles and the mandatory movies samples are there for you to enjoy this short ride on the memory train. If you, for instance, liked Flesher’s debut album and/or, like me, fancy some no-nonsense Death Metal that reminds you of the times you were in your teens… This is really something nice to kill your time with.
