Bloodiest hesitate to call themselves a metal band, though if you’ve seen one of their shows you probably have no such qualms. “People want us to be a metal band just because of the name,” says guitarist Tony Lazzara. It’s not that simple, though: Bloodiest’s name is remarkably, even poetically brutal, but it’s far from the only thing metal about them. Musically they summon the same kind of apocalyptic, black-hole heaviness as bands like Sleep, Neurosis, Mastodon, and Slayer—bands that, needless to say, are as metal as it is possible to be.
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I’m interviewing four members of Bloodiest: Lazzara, who plays guitar though he’s best known as a drummer (for defunct locals Sterling and Atombombpocketknife as well as Follows, a new group fronted by his girlfriend wife, former Electrelane guitarist Mia Clarke), guitarist Eric Chaleff (Lazzara’s bandmate in Sterling and Follows), singer Bruce Lamont (who also fronts Yakuza), and drummer Cayce Key (90 Day Men). Absent are guitarist Sean Patrick Riley and keyboardist Nandini Khaund, for both of whom Bloodiest is their first band. (Normally a seven-piece, they’re between bassists, so Ben Clarke from Lying in States is filling in for their Empty Bottle show this weekend.) From a glance around the table, you’d figure you were looking at a metal band: there’s plenty of long hair, beards, and black leather, and even though it’s 2 PM on a Sunday they’re ordering whiskey shots.
He might’ve just as easily name-checked Spacemen 3. He even could’ve said Sun Ra—Bloodiest’s songs use a lot of improvisation and have a similar “traveling” feel, as though their long unspooling is aimed from the start at a particular destination. “Night Feeder”—from their still-untitled debut album, which they hope to release later this year on a label to be determined—begins a la Ennio Morricone, with ornate fingerpicked acoustic guitar shadowed by sparse twangs from a reverbed electric, then blooms into a spacey dirge filled out with thundering drums, cycling piano arpeggios, and droning vocals. About five minutes in, the cascading guitar lines turn into chunky, palm-muted death-metal chugging, and the track spends another three minutes and change battering your ears in waves till your head feels like an old sailing ship in a midocean storm.
The group’s size presents logistical problems, and full attendance at Bloodiest practices is rare—usually they only manage it just before a show. “There’s just no way,” Key says, “that you can get seven people in a room and be like, ‘Let’s write a song!’”
“No,” says Lazzara, suddenly focused on the conversation again. “You don’t.”
