Artist: Baphomet’s Blood
Country: Italy
Label: Dying Victims Productions
Format: LP / CD
Year: 2026
Usually I try to stay away from reviewing re-releases from more regular albums, I’d like to aim more for old demos or whatever obscure stuff that is given a second coming. But rules, even the ones you make up yourself, are there to be broken. Dying Victims Productions is re-releasing the first two albums by Baphomet’s Blood, and that’s reason enough for me to make an exception. Why? Simply because I love those albums!
‘Second Strike’, as the title suggests, is the second album, but I’ve chosen to start with this one and save the debut album for later. Why? Because this is the best Baphomet’s Blood album. That’s why!
This was originally released in 2008 by Iron Bonehead Productions in collaboration with High Roller Records, which was then still a small, newly established label. This means that ‘Second Strike’ is not only a journey back in time as far as this Italian Speed Metal band is concerned, but also in terms of the labels involved. Over the last fifteen years, Iron Bonehead Productions has been best known for its Black Metal and Death Metal releases, but in the early years the focus was mainly on bands of this kind. Although the label has released more than enough good albums since, say, 2010, I personally wouldn’t mind seeing a few more releases of this sort again.
Right then, ‘Second Strike’. I spun the shit out of it when it came out, but I must admit, I hadn’t heard it for years. But now that I am blasting it again, it still feels as energetic and fresh as it was in 2008. Which, of course, is contradictory as hell, as this is the sort of metal that is possibly most dated. Nobody listening to Baphomet’s Blood would claim otherwise. Instead, this is the ugly sort of Heavy Metal that harks back to the Motörhead-infused records out of the Mausoleum Records stables. The vocals, in particular, are rough, harsh, ugly and as unmusical as you can possibly imagine; they are, after all, intended for nothing other than to accompany the roaring.
Unfortunately I have never been able to catch them playing live, honestly I don’t even know whether they left their native Italy for shows that often, but I can imagine that their live appearances must have been as great. This is the sort of music that fits even better in a live environment than on record, though I always felt that ‘Second Strike’ captured the band’s energy wonderfully as it conveys a strong “live” feeling.
The album has already been reissued in 2016 by Iron Bonehead Productions, but I am glad that this is being kept in print for anyone to hear some of the best, or well, one of the most enjoyable Speed Metal albums of the 00s. And, hearing this some 18 years after its original release, it still sounds as vigorous and powerful!
