Blood Stain Child
Album: Mozaiq
Release Date: October 9, 2007
Label: Locomotive Records

Reviewer: Doug

Have you ever said to yourself “I bet it’d be cool to incorporate large amounts of electronic elements like dance, techno and trance sounds into a melodic death metal album?” My magic 8-ball says “highly unlikely” but for the members of this Japanese band, it must have read “Definitely.” Blood Stain Child take the melodic death metal genre to an odd and yet compelling new level with their latest album “Mozaiq.”

Not too long from the album’s opening the waves of techno synthesizers will wash over you like a typhoon. These are accompanied by speedy guitar licks and booming drums. As for the vocal styles, they are reminiscent of Anders Friden of In Flames, with both growled and clean vocal harmonies. However, if you can understand what they’re saying at any given time, I’d be impressed. Yes, they are singing in English most of the time, but their accents are so thick that it is damn near impossible to make an accurate translation. This is probably better anyway. If you happen to look at the song lyrics you will notice that they make little sense as well, and you can tell that their English still hasn’t been perfected yet.

Lyrics and the comprehension of them aside, the album is fun to listen to. The electronic influences liven up the songs and give them a nice upbeat feel. Although, the first half of the album does start to become a bit redundant as most of the songs begin to sound similar. Once the track “Metropolice” kicks in, we get a slight change of pace. It alternates between slow and fast parts every 30 seconds or so while adding a female vocalist to the mix. Then “C.E.0079” kicks it back into high gear with extreme synth usage. This song is mostly an instrumental even though it does have lyrics, but they are vastly overshadowed by the synths. The song also sounds like it could be a contender for the next DDR release. The remaining tracks go back to the same formula found in the first half of the album, with the exception of “Neo-Gothic-Romance.” This track is the only mid-tempo track on the album, containing more emotionally driven clean vocal parts that sound a little weird and detract from an overall decent song.

Final Verdict
If you like melodic death metal and want something a little different than your usual dose of Dark Tranquillity, Soilwork, Children of Bodom or In Flames, then give this band a try. The idea of combining various electronic elements with death metal might put you off at first, but it really makes the experience much better and helps differentiate the band from the rest. Their previous album, Idolator, might be a little easier to swallow since these sounds are used to a lesser and better extent, and is a more versatile album than this one.