Album Review: Heave Blood & Die – Post People

Heave Blood & Die‘s sophomore album “Post People” will be released tomorrow, the 5th February, on CD, recycled vinyl and digital formats via Fysisk Format, the band’s name is one that suggests the excesses of the more extreme end of the metal scene, but as we’re not that kinda site rest assured this is not the case, the brutally monikered outfit are a very different prospect than their name would suggest. Instead of the expected dark satanic rumblings, what Norway’s Heave Blood & Die deliver is a timely critique of capitalism, one that possesses a staunch environmentalist outlook that stands in opposition to unjustified authority, the progressive viewpoint is accompanied by a soundtrack that embraces the post punk and alternative scenes that followed on from punk’s initial explosion.

Despite Heave Blood & Die not delivering the expected racket, that’s not to say that “Post People” isn’t an intense affair, the opening taste of the album, ‘Radio Silence‘, is a densely packed claustrophobic track that has a flair for the dramatic, as you would expect the first taste is deceptive and the intense opener is followed by the melodic and atmospheric  ‘Kawanishi Aeroplane‘. From this point you just let the album flow over you and forget trying to predict what Heave Blood & Die will unleash next, the album bounces across styles never settling on one from one song to the next across it’s eight tracks. “Post People” veers from the dark driven post punk of ‘Metropolitan Jam‘ through the almost gothic ‘True Believer‘ to the industrial mantra of ‘Everything Is Now‘. The album bows out in epic style with the synth heavy dark new wave of ‘Continental Drifting‘ and the swirling headspace of ‘Geometrical Shapes‘, things finally draw to a close with the sweeping melodic stripped down shoegaze of the album’s title track

“Post People” is appropriately enough a soundtrack for the end of the world, it’s also an album that indicates that the bands musical influences are primarily rooted in the dark side of the eighties. Whilst musically the band may shift styles and attitudes to impressive effect, the one thing that doesn’t change is their political view and their attitude towards environmental issues, make no mistake, this is as much a part of who Heave Blood & Die are as the soundtrack, and it’s this that drives the band. “Post People” is the most surprising album I’ve heard this year, at least partially due to assumptions on my part, but also due to the constantly shifting soundtrack. “Post People” is an impressive collage of the dark and dystopian side of punk and post punk that hammers it’s message home, I just hope someone is listening to them.

“Post People” can be pre-ordered via Fysisk Format and Bandcamp