Perhaps you would agree that there are many ways for a band to be good. (If you do not agree, that is okay. But why start off on such a disagreeable footing?) There are two in particular that stand out to me: the first is by possessing a singular, fully formed, encompassing aesthetic; the second is by demonstrating sheer, bloody commitment and fiery execution. The backhanded implication of each: plenty of bands of the first type can skate by on originality and verve, which may not force them to sweat it out and finely hone their craft; plenty of bands of the second type exist as copycats, devoted placeholders in an ongoing lineage forged elsewhere. Some bands, however, comfortably move in both orbits.
It would be pretty shitty, at this juncture, if I wasn’t leading to this point: No Spill Blood are exactly that kind of band on their new album Eye of Night, which is the Irish group’s first album for Finland’s excellent Svart Records. The most obvious point of interest with No Spill Blood is that the trio of Ror Conaty (drums), Matt Hedigan (bass/vocals), and Ruadhan O’Meara (synths/electronics) features no guitar. Rather than coming across as some kind of gimmick, though, the instrumentation on Eye of Night unlocks many opportunities for No Spill Blood to evoke diverse styles and musical histories, which nevertheless coalesce into a compelling whole.
No Spill Blood’s compositional approach pivots between harsher, industrial-edged punk/thrash energy and trance-inducing, FX-heavy space rock jamming. The title track, for example, moves at a crusty gallop and then closes out on a bad trip bounce, while “Anvil Crawler” sounds like it could have been an alternate take from Burst’s Origo after being fried and melted through a particularly deranged version of Tron. Throughout the album, Hedigan’s bass and O’Meara’s synths work together in a variety of head-spinning ways: sometimes the synths lay down a buzzy, snarling carpet for the bass to gallop over, while sometimes they move in tandem in such a way that the synths sound closer to heavily processed guitars. Even setting aside the excellent songwriting, a big part of Eye of Night’s appeal is its tactility.
In its more aggressive and industrial-inspired passages, No Spill Blood resonates on a similar frequency to bands like Valborg, Author & Punisher, or – especially when the trio really picks up the speed – a group like Zombi playing thrash. You might even find a hidden kinship with Hammers of Misfortune’s recent cocaine rocketship of a left turn, Overtaker. Ror Conaty’s drums are the crucial hinge that allows the band to nail these stylistic swings, as he moves from funky breaks (“Ad Unguem”) to tom-heavy whirlwinds (“Eye of Night” and especially “Ossein”) to nervous caveman clattering (“Anvil Crawler”).
In other moments, though, No Spill Blood dig their heels deep into a deliberate, patient, Krautrock trance (as on “Ad Unguem”). Album closer “Dead Satellite” takes those krauty elements and leans even further back into synth-slathered doom, but all the while Hedigan’s caustic bellow keeps the energy in the red. At times, Eye of Night could be the result of Tangerine Dream and Hawkwind colliding with the Amphetamine Reptile catalog, while on the album’s most harrowing moments (like the tense, lungeing rhythm and ants-under-your-skin atmosphere of “Ekur”) the band taps into some of the same malevolent psychedelia as Oranssi Pazuzu.
If instead of being set in the American Southwest, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas was set on a rickety outlaw cargo ship making a run to Alpha Centauri, Eye of Night would be the perfect road trip soundtrack, equal parts awe and paranoia, melodic majesty and skin-clawing psychosis. If No Spill Blood are not quite yet a lineage of one, Eye of Night stakes out a bold claim on that rarefied tightrope where artistic imagination and guts-deep determination collide.
