Blissful Stream – Dead Religious (Review)

Blissful Stream is a Swedish one man doom metal band and this is his latest EP.

I really like Blissful Stream. Both 2016’s Ascending Demons and 2017’s Devil’s Night to All Souls, (a split with Lightsabres), were very enjoyable and showcased the artist’s lo-fi and charismatic take on doom metal/rock. Now it’s 2018, and time for a new EP, which we have in the form of the 14 minutes of material that makes up Dead Religious.

There’s just something so effortlessly disarming and charming about Blissful Stream’s work. The moment the first track starts on this EP I feel instantly at home with the material, and it’s immediately obvious that not only has the artist not lost his skill at crafting enticingly warm and inviting music, but that, if anything, his songwriting ability has actually improved.

The same can also be said of the recording, which boasts the most well-rounded sound of all of the EPs so far, without, (thankfully), compromising the integrity or feel of the music.

Across the four tracks offered us on Dead Religious we get a mix of doom metal, occult/hard/doom rock, and some elements of sludge. It’s well-written, perfectly judged, and extremely gratifying.

The singer’s charismatic vocals don’t actually appear until the second song, but are worth the wait. Like seemingly everything else here they have improved too, and it’s such a joy to be able to witness Blissful Stream make purposeful strides forward. To what end? Who knows, but I can’t wait to find out.

This is Blissful Stream’s best work yet. Let’s hope this project continues to go from strength to strength, as it really is something special.