Metal Underground.com

While full-on extreme metal of any given sub-genre may be our focus here at Metalunderground, sometimes you've got to go outside the standard boundaries and try something different to expand your musical horizons. That's what you get here with Statiqbloom, an industrial project that pulls in sounds from several other genres from goth to darkwave. “Blue Moon Blood” is a bit like Nine Inch Nails, Marilyn Mason, Electric Hellfire Club, and Perturbator all rolled up into an industrial shell.

Several of the songs have gothic, clean-style singing, but you'll also hear plenty of harsher vocals clearly on the metal side across these 10 tracks. While listening through I kept getting this nagging feeling of familiarity, and it didn't click until checking online that Statiqbloom is the project of Fade Kainer from Batillus, who showed up to provide vocals for that devastatingly heavy doom outfit somewhere around the time of the “Furnace” album.

Each track has a pulsing feel, but oddly that pulsed sensation is a restrained one, offering a less-all consuming feel than you'd expect from musicians involved with extreme metal projects. There's a really clear pattern to each song, more like a standard template honestly, with a basic EDM beat keeping things going while a focus is placed on backing sounds and voice overs.

The old horror movie voice overs kicking off “Black Walks Eternal” immediately grab attention, although they take over and consume the song by the time the five minute track ends. “Phantom Eye” meanwhile keeps it more low key, utilizing a voice over of the ill-fated meth cook from True Detective explaining the corrosive shadow on Rust Cohle. “Crooked Line” might be the highlight of the album, with a darkened noir beat working alongside mysterious and creepy vocals.

While there are a lot of influences at play, “Blue Moon Blood” frequently feels minimalist - often to its detriment. At times this creates a gritty and cold atmosphere, while others you get a sound that's just plain empty. That emptiness hits its peak with “Pale Lust,” which feels like its actively missing an element or two to the music and there should be something else there holding all the sounds together.

While not as fleshed overall out as some of the previously mentioned bands, these tracks will still hold interest for fans of industrial and synthwave, and I'm curious to hear where the project goes with future releases.