Blindfolded and Led to the Woods is a quartet from Christchurch, New Zealand, having gone through a rebirth with 2021’s excellent Nightmare Withdrawals. Previously a humor-based deathcore band, the act saw new beginnings with their third full-length, embracing a caustic blend of dissonant, technical, and progressive death metal with a much more surreal and punishing palette promising avant-garde realms and scenic vistas alike. Rejecting Obliteration streamlines this palette for a more distinct tension between melody and dissonance to chronicle a path to healing through the thorns of trauma and pain. Living up to its hype, Blindfolded and Led to the Woods accomplishes its aims with a mighty roar and a soothing whisper – albeit imperfectly.
Most impressive about Rejecting Obliteration is its ability to fuse multiple moods and styles with rock-solid songwriting. While its incredibly solid predecessor felt like a compilation of songs detailing the band’s unholy rebirth into the realms of ominous avant-garde, the newest offering feels much more streamlined. While you’ll find the front half sees Blindfolded and Led to the Woods’ heart in more contemplative and crystalline passages and the second act delves headfirst into caustic insanity, it feels like the whole package. “Methlehem” and “Hallucinative Terror” feature tasteful melody that forces listeners to stop and stare between the start-stop brutality, while “Hands of Contrition,” “The Waves,” and “Funeral Smiles” balance influences from Meshuggah, Ulcerate, and Artificial Brain respectively, retaining a distinct crawling feel with stinging technicality. The two mileposts in centerpiece “Rejecting Obliteration” and closer “Caustic Burns” focus on more contemplative and huge reveling riffs, letting sprawl showcase intensity and thought, while “Wrath” is the most ominous build-up the act has offered thus far. Rejecting Obliteration contains a more nimble feel than much of its counterparts or influences thanks to a good mix that feels as caustic and melodic is needed.
While the theme of Rejecting Obliteration focuses on the journey of trauma and healing, instrumentals can lack this cohesion. In particular, the front half features tracks that shift between scathing dissodeath passages and calming post-rock plucking with no warning, inducing whiplash. “Monolith” feels uncommitted, while “Hallucinative Terror” abandons its haunting central motif quickly. You’ll discover the back half better succeeds in more cohesive songs. Although containing melody, for instance, “Cicada” offers a better swell into the melodic closing portions than “Methlehem;” although containing ominous tones that build into destructive heaviness, “Wrath” is more committed to the dynamic than “Hallucinative Terror.” There are a million formidable ideas being thrown around, and while the openers feel like a showcase of their formidable capabilities, the back half finally settles into a more uniform feel.
You could make the case that the album’s uneven structure represents the thorny path of acceptance and healing, that Blindfolded and Led to the Woods finds its footing in the title track and beyond with some of the most scathing music they could muster along the way. However, the opening trilogy then falls into unnecessary territory. When the act finally finds its footing, Rejecting Obliteration is hard to stop, with tracks like “The Waves” and “Hand of Contrition” being among the best tracks that the Christchurch act has to offer. Straddling the borders between technical, progressive, and dissonant for something distinctly avant-garde, Blindfolded and Led to the Woods sets its trajectory to the stars with Rejecting Obliteration path of beauty and decay, even if the potential is slightly higher than the content.
Rating: 3.5/5.0
DR: 6 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: Prosthetic Records
Websites: facebook.com/balttw | balttw.bandcamp.com
Releases Worldwide: May 19th, 2023
