Album Review: Bloody Head – The Temple Pillars Dissolve Into the Clouds (Hominid Sounds)

Hominid Sounds will release the brand new album from Nottingham, UK’s Bloody Head. Called ‘The Temple Pillars Dissolve Into the Clouds’ it is out on May 31st 2021.

The essence of Bloody Head is: acceptance, reflection, celebration and the battle against things (mind/body/spirit) going very wrong. It is the manifestation of things getting wonky and breaking, revelry in destruction and decay. Broken (brain/dick/mind) blues. Bleak party bangers as a soundtrack to our collective slow motion apocalypse.

In disturbingly peaceful fashion, the weird collective that is Bloody Head get their new album started. The subtle rhythm and beat of This Could be Paradise puts the mind at ease. All so the band can pull the rug out a few minutes later. The burst of noise will send things reeling, especially as it’s surprisingly intense and very hard to categorise. A early clue about the album as a whole.

Is it noise rock? Doom? Ambient Avant -Garde? Punk? Psychedelic? Metal? It’s all of these things and none of them. Bloody Head occupy a specific place and it’s in their minds and their minds alone.

There’s no working out Homeopathic Mountains either, aside from enjoying the mega-fuzz on the guitars and the echoing discombobulated vocals. This one will make the belly groan in harmony. While Discordia is a truly fitting name for the discordant, but somewhat catchy, 91 seconds of music that burst forth from the mind of Bloody Head.

So far, so very fascinating. Your World Is As Old As You comes next and delivers rhythmic hooks amongst the screeches of feedback and punk-style defiance. If there’s a modern band with the punk ethos of ‘don’t tell us what to do’ then Bloody Head are it.

Seemingly torturing their instruments to within an inch of their lives, Glory Holes is painful but like everything else here, impossibly addictive. It almost makes you salivate waiting to see what might emerge from the heads of Bloody Head.

How about something with rumbling doomy riffs and an increasing tempo that transforms the track into something you could dance too? That would be Psychick Warfare. How about something with a bit more fun energy to it? That still sounds as whacked out as everything else Bloody Head has produced? Try The Process of Forever on for size.

This far in, if you’re unconvinced by what you’ve heard so far, St. Elsewhere and the Altar of Coincidence won’t likely change that. Although, you’d have to at least give Bloody Head a nod of respect once hearing it. One of the more psychedelic tracks, the vibes it gives off is enough to send the mind tripping. The slow and methodical descent into true chaos is subtle but so very exciting.

Weird as fuck but so many of best things often are.

Bloody Head – The Temple Pillars Dissolve Into the Clouds Full Track Listing:

1. This Could Be Paradise
2. Homeopathic Mountains
3. Discordia
4. Your World Is As Old As You
5. Glory Holes
6. Psychick Warfare
7. The Process of Forever
8. St. Elsewhere and the Altar of Coincidence

Links

Bandcamp | Hominid Sounds