The quest to do something that’s not only fresh but also pleasing to hear is one that millions upon millions of people have tried completing, and millions have failed. Yet, there are some bands that seem to do so just naturally without trying to sound good or pleasing to anyone outside of themselves because they have a specific image and a special destination with their music. For years, Romania’s Bloodway has always been one of those bands, and that glorious trend continues with yet another head-turner of an album.

A unique approach to any sort of style is a good way to truly show your genius as both a singular musician and collectively as a band as it can show off your strengths that you can accomplish through teamwork and how to bring many different elements together cohesively. Many bands can take regular sounding death metal into something really good while another falls right on their face trying to do so. Bloodway strays from the norm of black metal as not only does this Romanian trio do a pretty solid job at shaking up the style of black metal that many have become accustomed to, their upcoming record, “A Fragile Riddle Crypting Clues”, is a continuation of how this band takes progressive elements and fuses them into the mix while also tossing in some influences from the world of rock to really shake it up. The whole 45-minute experience of this album is truly all over the board, and it comes together very well to create a sound that’s not only multi-layered but emotionally significant as well with “A Fragile Riddle Crypting Clues” serves as an introspective piece for the members of Bloodway. This helps the record become so much more than an amalgamation of styles, but also something that’s meaningful to the creators. That really helps this piece become much more enjoyable on further listens since you know that there’s weight behind the words and the music is an immaculate vessel for that with how well Bloodway brought everything together for this third full-length of excellence.

Past examples have proven, overwhelmingly so, that straying from the “normal” path of metal has led to many great creations that have become classics and even spawned styles of their own from those that hailed such an achievement. Bloodway isn’t at the point to where they’ve created their own niche genre, but their divergence from metal that we’ve grown accustomed to allows for this stellar album to bring an absolute swathe of fresh air to our minds. “A Fragile Riddle Crypting Clues” is far from the daunting listen that many could assume it’d be, but this record is very approachable with a flavorful amount of darkness that truly lets this piece stand out from the drones and enable Bloodway to do what they do best.

“A Fragile Riddle Crypting Clues” releases on November 3rd via I, Voidhanger Records!

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