Unleashing the next installment of albums, Bloodbath has released filthy and vile destruction with The Arrow of Satan is Drawn. It has been four years since the latest release and it was well worth the wait. It takes the same gore-fuelled approach that Bloodbath is famous for, and decimates it with calamitous, brutal death metal. The album’s theme revolves around how humanity is a festering plague across the world, and that us humans are the downfall of everything. We will be the cause of our own demise. The first few seconds of this album cultivate a hostile atmosphere that relentlessly resurfaces and represents the repulsive and grotesque ferocity of the songs to follow. “Fleischmann” starts the aggression of a powerviolence track before ripping into ghastly riffs that recklessly pummel the listener with waves of aggression. The tempo is eventually slowed down, which concocts a chilling and eerie feeling, but wastes no time bringing back the sharp bloodstained instrumentals that bring about a hideous, cataclysmic annihilation. This destruction fades into a terrifying screaming that is masked and layered with distortion and white noise.
“Levitator” takes the slow and decaying approach to creating devastatingly heavy riffs that continuously and recklessly tear into you. It gradually carves its way through with every note and slowly batters one into an indistinguishable pile of paste. The gutturals and growls from the vocalist, Nick Holmes, compliment the punishing instrumentals and push this arrangement into a new level of brutality. There are small pockets of intense, rapid bursts of speed that somehow make this already monstrous track even more fearsome. The swift changes in tempo do not allow any predictability, and continuously mutate into the gore-soaked abnormality that is Bloodbath. Kicking off “Morbid Antichrist” is a short and sinister riff that is followed by a pulsating flow of instrumentals before diving straight into good old grimy death metal. Thanks to Martin Axenrot's proficiency with the drums, there is never a dull moment; the beats and fills are never stagnant and help evolve this composition into another level. With the uncompromising riffs and the fluid-like take on speed, this song can make anyone succumb to the nefariousness of the “Morbid Antichrist”.
Unleashing another behemoth of gore, violence, and putridness, Bloodbath has delivered what they always do: an insanely heavy album. A lot like the album's theme, the band's crushing sound births a monstrous anomaly that has the power to destroy humanity. If you want to listen to some of 2018’s best death metal, this is for you.