No Spill Blood - Eye of Night

Angry Metal Guy

Guitars scream metal. We’ve mused around the idea that metal can escape the confines of a typical treble assault with bands like Greber and Twin Lords highlighting fervent and twisted bass melodies as the fright and flight of the program. In aggressive and emotional takes on sludge and hardcore, it works. Other acts like Seum eschew the standard 6-stringer cultivating a hypnotic groove—to a fault, perhaps—to carry their torch down the metal path. No Spill Blood falls closer to this category with their 2015 debut Heavy Electric holding a unique place in the stoner rock (ish) scene for elevating the groovy shred-less platform with fierce layers of synthwork. Now eight years and one Brexit later, can these Irish rockers find a voice that helps the masses join their mission?

Relying heavily on the motorik hypnosis pioneered through 70s krautrock, No Spill Blood lets synths slowly ebb and flow around machine-precise kicks—Eye of Night pulls the audience in a much different way than the strong push of Heavy Electric. Whereas bassist and vocalist Matt Hedigan previously led more with his thick and distorted throbs, he lets both his sound modalities also take a supportive role against the increasingly spacious and winding synth arrangements. Eye of Night doesn’t land on the minimalist side like similarly kraut-minded rockers Spill Gold though. Lighter fare like the early track “Ad Unguem,” which features the classic metronome of a wood block click, might lull you into playful groove but No Spill Blood finds many ways throughout to quiver and flutter your earholes.

Eye of Night by No Spill Blood
Ruadhan O’Meara’s synth work is easily the star of this hallucinatory show. From the opening sputters of “Cradle Scythe” to the closing drift through star-kissed space of “Dead Satellite,” Eye of Night comes fully loaded with shimmering and dripping patches. Whereas many other bands have a hard time making good use of interludes, No Spill Blood succeeds with orbiting hymnal “Cimmerian Maw” and failing engine chatter of “–” because of O’Meara’s expertise at building atmospheres with lush and varied textures. And when he’s not painting the universe, urgent squeals and drones provide the intensity build against the steady rhythms (“Ad Ungeum,” “Ossein”). Though the mid-album cleanser “Toom” appears to be a drum-first affair, O’Meara manages to wash over with spacious, oscillating chords to set the stage for future intrusions. I have a hard time understanding whether I’m more technically impressed or emotionally swept by many of these numbers, but either way, this caliber of synth work is not something we often find in the greater metalsphere.

But worry not, though the center of the ten songs on display may not readily display a galvanized core, Eye of Night holds a metal heart. After the initial floating opening to the album, drummer Ror Conaty wastes no time dropping into an intense kick snare pattern (“Anvil Crawler”) that would get any denim-vested audience wildly throwing arms. Hedigan maintains a full, rumbling presence on his thick-stringed weapon of choice, even taking the lead for the driving number “Ekur”. And, as if to give his own nod to the metal that helped inspire them, Hedigan rips a fuzzy, galloping melody on “Eye of Night” that would have fit snugly against the synth-heavy glory of late 80s Iron Maiden. Sure, there are no twin lead harmonies anywhere on this album, but No Spill Blood has no trouble instead adding layers upon layers of synths to build and break tension, also using intense panning techniques to fill the field (“Dead Satellite”).

Atmospheric without losing footing, pulsing without losing a melodic voice, there’s not a single act that really sounds like No Spill Blood. You can’t simply reach to the past and say this is a heavy Hawkwind despite the journey on Eye of Night being proper for a technicolor excursion through zero gravity. Nor can you reach to other horror-fueled, synth-leaning acts like The Lion’s Daughter because suspense and terror don’t define this more cosmically existential landscape. This trio sits enthusiastically in their own niche of atypically arranged post-metal, though not yet comfortably in a triumphant sound. With as much as there is to navigate in the nuanced novelties that outline the No Spill Blood environment, I find myself wandering, lost, but continuing to try to find my way. I hope No Spill Blood does the same.

Rating: 3.0/5.0
DR: 7 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: Svart Records
Websites: nospillblood.bandcamp.com | facebook.com/nospillblood
Releases Worldwide: February 24th, 2023

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