I had discovered the band when they released their debut album, and was disappointed when the follow-up couldn't hold the lineup together even that long, so having the ship right itself for the third record was the sort of second chance you don't usually get. While the band was derivative, they were fun, and I was still enamored enough with power metal to want more. That isn't exactly what we got.
Bloodbound has proven themselves over all these years to be a derivative band, indeed, without anything I would consider an identity of their own. Each album cycle is a guessing game as to which other band they will be taking on that time around. What still stands out as the oddest choice they've ever made is the record that endures not just as their best album, but the one that I feel set the stage for an entire strain of power metal we see to this day, even if no one has ever matched the original.
You wouldn't associate Soilwork with power metal, and yet it is that band whose influence is heaviest on "Tabula Rasa". Gone are the galloping Iron Maiden riffs, replaced with the mechanical precision of Swedish melodeath (or at least as it was at the time). The rhythms take over everything, with chunky stabs of muted guitar matching the kick drums to hit us over the head with the percussive force of the band. This cedes the entire melodic realm to Urban Breed, who is able to take that backdrop and paint sticky melodies in the empty space. Fusing melody and rhythm is not easy, and many have failed to do it, but much like Fear Factory signaled a new era when they first did the same thing, Bloodbound was changing the course of power metal.
We now have bands like Dynazty and others who have taken up the mantle and tried to follow through on the blueprint, but no one has managed to quite do it as well as Bloodbound. That tells me it was probably a happy accident, but even though others have not been able to match the feat, it opened up possibilities the stale genre desperately needed. Even if they are as unoriginal as the more traditional bands, in their own way, that staleness still sounds fresher than the alternative.
Putting the album on now, the first seconds when the guitars kick in after the twinkling synths remains a kick in the teeth, and something none of the similar records that have followed has been able to do. "Tabula Rasa" caught me off-guard, surprised me, and then executed at the highest order of songwriting. Urban had some master plan in his mind, and while he decided to keep that hidden behind a cypher that makes himself sound more clever than he is, the inspiration carries through into the music. There is a power to this record that sounds heavier than similar bands, and his voice is given more room to soar and emote. When he hits the powerful notes in the chorus of "Plague Doctor", I can hear everything missing from the more modern mixes that followed.
Sadly, the band would implode once again after this record. Urban would make a good record with a new band of his own, only to then find himself out of his own creation, and the cycle continued again. Bloodbound would find stability in copying the paths of others. This brief chapter was something difficult, something that obviously was not built to last, but its impact is something that still resonates. We hear it in the more modern and heavier version of power metal out there in the market, and I would say it also echoes in music like Soen's recent records, where we continue to see that rhythm and melody don't have to be opponents.
"Tabula Rasa" was very much a fresh slate for power metal, and it sounds nearly as fresh right now as it did on that first listen. It was a vision of a future we are still trying to perfect, but it showed us a path to get there. In a world where so much music winds up blending together, "Tabula Rasa" stands apart, even now.
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