Review by Lawrence Stillman on December 26, 2023.

Shit, for a pioneering album, this kind of sucks. Epsilon (their 2011 album) did it much better. Which is ironic because that one is less metal-adjacent than this album.

Another trip down memory lane, and that means another story time: back in high school where everyone was really into dumb shit like Asking Alexandria, I decided to find what band began this obnoxious-ass sound and discovering BSC as a result. Initially, I thought, "Wow, this is so much better than all those metalcore bullshit, how did they go from this to that dumpster fire?" But after a few years, I went back to this album, only to find myself looking at it with indifference instead of adoration.

Blood Stain Child is a melodeath band from Japan that basically pioneered the EDM (electronic dance music) elements commonly seen in modern-day melodeath and metalcore. But instead of the more hardcore techno or synth pop-focused electronics, this band elected to use trance instead, and they have been using it since they started doing this style. But that is not what they REALLY began as. Instead, their two albums prior to this had a more Children of Bodom-esque sound to them.

First, I have to address the elephant in the room, and that is the Gothenburg style of melodeath they adopted from this album onwards. This isn't the kind of Gothenburg where the band experiments with the songwriting like Disarmonia Mundi, but instead they copied the same style of melodeath as later At the Gates (by later I mean post reunion, which is somehow worse than SOTS). Radio-friendly song structures and choruses with some harsh vocals sprinkled in, lazy riffing, uninspired solos, all that jazz, Ryu somehow just decided to go with a stock standard melodic death metal riff that sounds like it came from a riff factory designed to mass produce basic riffs, soulless as hell. Another thing about the guitars here is that they are way too forward in the mix, which drowns out basically everything else besides the drums and the annoying ass vocals. This is a stark difference compared to their previous two albums, which had pretty balanced mixing for all the instruments. The bass sounds pretty standard for modern melodic death metal, not standing out too much and not being annoying at all, while the drums sound very good, which is a surprise considering how lacklustre the rest of the instruments are besides the EDM stuff (which I will explain later). Although the terrible production was somewhat justified since Tue Madsen is behind the wheel and everything he touches will become an audible mess.

The biggest culprit in this album's terrible sound is without a doubt the vocals. The harsh vocals sound annoying even for JP melodeath standards due to how much Ryo butchers the lyrics, it sounds too exaggerated and borders on sounding like an emo vocalist. But Ryu somehow makes his brother's vocals sound listenable. How? Ryu's cleans sounded like he wasn't even trying and was just half-assing his parts. It seriously sounds like a teenager trying to copy a cool baritone and failing miserably at it. The beginning of Truth is basically how it sounds at its worst.

"You gave this a 4, so there must be something good about it, right?" And you would be correct. Notice how I did not mention the EDM/synth elements earlier? That is because they are the glue that keeps the album listenable from start to finish. While they sound pretty meh in the first half, the EDM elements take on a more central role in carrying the song forward from Truth onwards, which is a nice change of pace because the guitar melodies sound really inoffensive and lack energy. This aspect is at its strongest in the latter half of the album, where the electronics are not as buried as they are in the first half. It is telling when the best song of the album is a song done entirely by keyboards and electronics, that being Nuclear Trance.

If you want to check out this album, I would recommend you start with Nuclear Trance and then finish the album from there while avoiding the Luna Sea cover, that cover is just plain garbage and has lost everything that made the original so good. Idolator is another cautionary tale regarding changing your sound to resemble Gothenburg's because it will never work out well barring some experimentation. The EDM elements also unintentionally sparked another annoying trend in the melodeath/metalcore scene, full of dumbasses who cannot even utilise them halfway as well as the EDM elements here. At least BSC manages to correct their mistakes and improve to make better albums, unlike ATG after SOTS.

Just listen to Epsilon and Amateras if you dig this style, and anything by MergingMoon. Those guys in MM took the EDM elements and cranked it up to 11, proving not all metalcore is garbage, even if it is just one example among a sea of cringe metalcore bands.

Highlights: 'Nuclear Trance', 'Ag2o', 'Life Story'
Songs to avoid: The Luna Sea cover at the end, especially if you have heard the original.

Rating: 4 out of 10