Album Review: Bloedmaan - Vampyric War in Blood
Album Review
Artist: Bloedmaan
Release Date: December, 19, 2025
Score 7/10
Review by Rick Eaglestone
Bloedmaan's latest offering, Vampyric War in Blood. May have a title is about as subtle as a stake through the heart at midnight mass. But here's the thing: sometimes extreme music doesn't need subtlety. Sometimes it needs fangs, fury, and enough corpse paint to keep a theatrical supplier in business for decades.
Bloedmaan—which translates to "Blood Moon" for those of you who didn't spend your youth poring over black metal liner notes—have building a reputation as purveyors of particularly vicious vampyric extreme metal. This latest full-length assault represents their most ambitious work to date, a concept album that weaves tales of ancient bloodlines, eternal warfare, and the kind of gothic horror that would make Anne Rice reach for a crucifix.
From the moment the Intro establishes its ominous atmosphere—all distant bells, creeping dread, and the unmistakable sense that something ancient and terrible is stirring—it's abundantly clear that Bloedmaan have arrived with serious intent. it's raw enough to maintain that essential underground aesthetic, yet sufficiently polished to let every instrument breathe in the mix. You can actually hear the bass, which in black metal circles is about as rare as a vampire attending a beach party.
The vocals oscillates between throat-shredding shrieks and cavernous growls with the kind of conviction that suggests he genuinely believes he's an immortal creature of the night. There's a desperate, hungry quality to his delivery that transcends mere performance and enters the realm of genuine possession. Whether that's down to exceptional acting or an alarming commitment to method, I couldn't say, but it's undeniably effective.
The guitar work from twin axemen showcases a fascinating blend of influences. There's obviously a healthy dose of classic Norwegian black metal in the DNA here—those tremolo-picked minor key melodies that sound like winter winds howling through abandoned castles are pure second-wave worship. But there's also a surprising amount of traditional heavy metal sensibility lurking beneath the blast beats and corpse paint, particularly evident in the soaring leads that punctuate the more epic moments.
The overall atmosphere, is where Vampyric War in Blood truly sinks its teeth in (pun absolutely intended). The band has wisely incorporated strategic use of keyboards and ambient soundscapes to enhance the gothic horror aesthetic without overwhelming the fundamental black metal assault. It's the sort of atmosphere that would make Midnight Syndicate nod in approval before returning to their organ.
The lyrical content is exactly what you'd expect given the album title and song names—there's blood, there's warfare, there's vampires doing vampiric things. But credit where it's due, the writing manages to avoid the worst excesses of black metal cliché (no "grim and frostbitten" anywhere in sight, thankfully) while still delivering the gothic goods. The songs tell tales of ancient vampire armies and eternal conflicts, and while it's hardly Shakespearean in its sophistication, it's delivered with such earnest conviction that you find yourself swept along regardless.
After the atmospheric "Intro" sets the scene, the title track "Vampyric War In Blood" explodes into life with cascading tremolo riffs and blast beats that sound like coffin lids being hammered shut in rapid succession. This is Bloedmaan announcing themselves properly—aggressive, melodic, and utterly committed to the vampyric aesthetic. The way it builds from the intro's dread into full-bore assault is masterfully done.
"Return To Castlevania" is where the Castlevania influence becomes gloriously explicit, and frankly, it's bloody brilliant. The band clearly worship at the altar of Konami's legendary gothic horror series, and they've channeled that 8-bit darkness into crushing black metal form. There's a melodic sensibility here that recalls the classic game soundtracks whilst remaining thoroughly metal. The main riff is an absolute earworm—haunting and triumphant in equal measure.
"The Clock Tower" leans into the atmospheric side of the band's sound, with eerie keyboards and a mid-paced trudge that builds genuine tension. This is horror movie scoring meets extreme metal, complete with chiming bells and a sense of impending doom. The guitar work here is particularly evocative, painting sonic pictures of ancient mechanisms counting down to something terrible.
Then we hit "What A Horrible Night To Have A Curse," and if you're not grinning at that Castlevania II reference, you might be dead inside. This track is pure kinetic energy—relentless blast beats, vicious riffing,. It's the sound of being pursued through cursed villages by legions of the undead, and it's utterly glorious. The brief melodic reprieve in the middle provides just enough breathing room before the final assault.
"Commander Of Spectral Forces" is the album's epic centrepiece and absolute highlight. This is where Bloedmaan showcase their full compositional range, moving from thunderous war metal passages to soaring, almost triumphant moments that feel like vampire armies marching beneath blood-red skies. The guitar solos here are genuinely impressive—melodic without being wanky, technical without losing sight of the song's emotional core. At over seven minutes, it justifies every second of its runtime.
The brief Outro serves as a palate cleanser, bringing things full circle with a return to the atmospheric dread of the opening. It's moody, unsettling, and leaves you in a state of dark contemplation rather than just bludgeoning you into submission.
But wait—there's more. "Rise Of The Blood Moon" arrives as a post-outro crusher, and it's a brilliant choice for a closer. This feels like the ultimate statement of everything the album represents: epic, melodic, brutal, and thoroughly committed to the vampyric warfare concept. The way the blood moon imagery ties back to the band's name creates a satisfying conceptual loop, and musically it's as strong as anything else on the record.
Yet these are relatively minor quibbles in what is ultimately a thoroughly enjoyable slab of vampyric extreme metal. What Bloedmaan have achieved with Vampyric War in Blood is no small feat: they've taken a theme that could easily descend into self-parody and treated it with enough sincerity and musical craftsmanship to make it compelling. This isn't pastiche or camp; it's legitimate extreme metal that happens to be about vampires waging eternal war, with a healthy dose of Castlevania worship thrown in for good measure.
The album is at its strongest when the band leans into the epic, theatrical elements of their sound without abandoning the raw aggression that defines black metal. They demonstrate that you can have atmospheric keyboards, melodic guitar leads, and triumphant compositions without sacrificing intensity or credibility. It's a delicate balance, and Bloedmaan navigate it more successfully than many of their peers.
What it will do is provide fans of theatrical black metal, gothic horror, Castlevania soundtracks, and well-executed extreme metal with a thoroughly vicious dose of entertainment. It's the sort of album best enjoyed at volume in the darkness, preferably with candles, incense, and a healthy disregard for what the neighbours might think.
In conclusion, Bloedmaan have delivered a blood-soaked triumph of vampyric extreme metal that successfully balances brutality with atmosphere, aggression with melody, and raw underground aesthetic with professional execution. Give this one a spin when the moon rises full and red, and let yourself be swept away by the eternal warfare. Just maybe keep some garlic handy, yeah?
A Blood-Soaked Symphony of Nocturnal Warfare
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