Album Review: Blindfolded and Led to the Woods – Rejecting Obliteration (Prosthetic Records)

Two years on from their acclaimed third studio album, Nightmare Withdrawals, Christchurch, New Zealand’s Blindfolded and Led to The Woods have returned and intend to leave an indelible mark on the landscape of extreme music in 2023. The quintet will be releasing their fourth full-length, and Prosthetic Records debut, Rejecting Obliteration on May 19th, 2023.

Progressive, abrasive, and cathartic, Blindfolded and Led to The Woods continue their familiar brand of brutality with Rejecting Obliteration. Yet, this is also a heavily experimental album with some unique structures, melodic passages, hyperactive tempos, and wilder instrumental segments. Familiar but fresh.

Beginning in coarse fashion with the aptly titled Monolith, Blindfolded and Led to The Woods unleash addictive discordance immediately. However, as the track goes on, it gets cleaner and more melodic, creating a balance of dark and light that is downright epic.

Methlehem is something of a heavy palette cleanser after that as it finds Blindfolded and Led to The Woods in a belligerent mood. Words like ‘scathing’, ‘feral’, and ‘chaotic’ come to mind. Whereas Hallucinative Terror has cold melody to start with but deviates into savage locales and sees the band sounding their most unhinged. Before the title track and Wraith take us up to the halfway point of the record with a pair of overwhelmingly intense blasts of crunchy extreme metal. Blended with enigmatic melodies, haunting heaviness, and progressive twists. These will make a fanatic out of everyone who hears them.

Yet, there is so much more to come, and the second half of the album finds Blindfolded and Led to The Woods in an inspired mood. First, with manic vigour and lavish tone switches on Cicada. Then with the ‘less than two minutes’ carnage of Funeral Smiles, a track that is hilariously fast and furious. Followed then by even more harsh instrumentation and guttural vocal horror with The Waves and Hands of Contrition. There’s no getting tired of this level of progressive ferocity, complex and confident all the way through.

Which makes Caustic Burns one hell of a closing track. Partially because it is the longest track on the album, but mainly because it is the grandest and most gripping example of how emphatic Blindfolded and Led to The Woods’ extreme sound is. It’s the sound of being stomped on and having a steel capped heel dug into the skull. Even with skilfully layered melodic drops.

Four albums in, and still making music that just slays. It’s Blindfolded and Led to The Woods and they are at the top of their game.

Blindfolded and Led to The Woods – Rejecting Obliteration Track Listing:

1. Monolith
2. Methlehem
3. Hallucinative Terror
4. Rejecting Obliteration
5. Wraith
6. Cicada
7. Funeral Smiles
8. The Waves
9. Hands of Contrition
10. Caustic Burns

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