''Day of Vengeance'' is the fifth studio album by Ukrainian folk metal band
Holy Blood. It was released on December 31, 2014, in Russia through Musica Production
and on May 18, 2015, in the rest of the world through Bombworks Records.
Background and history
On December 21, 2013, Fedor Buzilevich uploaded a demo of a new song titled "Holy Blood" to his official
Facebook
Facebook is an online social media and social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. Founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with fellow Harvard College students and roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin M ...
profile.
On December 25, it was added to his
YouTube
YouTube is a global online video platform, online video sharing and social media, social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by ...
channel and Holy Blood's official website, while also announcing the band was in the studio.
On January 24, 2014, Buzilevich updated the band's official website, revealing the title of their upcoming album to be ''Day of Vengeance''. He stated the album would be released in the spring of 2014 on Bombworks Records, would include 8 new songs, and the band would begin touring for the album by the end of the summer of that year.
On February 18, the band's official website was further updated, revealing a complete lineup change occurred, with the exception of Buzilevich.
As a result, Buzilevich wrote and recorded the album by himself.
On March 23, Buzilevich announced that he had completed recording the album. He also unveiled the cover art of the album on his Facebook profile, and made two more songs available for streaming on Holy Blood's official website, titled "Steel Sword" and "I Believe in God".
Sound
Buzilevich revealed in an interview that the album would be a departure of the band's previous
folk metal
Folk metal is a fusion genre of heavy metal music and traditional folk music that developed in Europe during the 1990s. It is characterised by the widespread use of folk instruments and, to a lesser extent, traditional singing styles (for exampl ...
sound in favor of a
melodic death metal sound,
though there will be some elements of folk metal,
viking metal and
doom metal
Doom metal is an extreme subgenre of heavy metal music that typically uses slower tempos, low-tuned guitars and a much "thicker" or "heavier" sound than other heavy metal genres.K. Kahn-Harris, ''Extreme Metal: Music and Culture on the Edge'' ...
still present.
Cover art
In early January 2014, Buzilevich commented on the upcoming cover art of the album, saying:
On February 18, the cover art was discreetly revealed as a thumbnail after the official website's discography section was updated.
It was officially revealed on Buzilewicz's Facebook profile on March 23.
The cover was created by Vitaliy Tretyakov, a close friend of the band.
On May 22, Tretyakov commented on the concept of the album cover, saying:
Track listing
Personnel
;Holy Blood
*Fedor Buzilevich – lead vocals, guitars, bass
;Additional musicians
*Slava Malinin – drums
;Production
*Matt Hunt – producer
*Vitaliy "Triptych" Tretyakov – cover art, design, layout
*Eugenia Buzilevich – promotional representative
References
Holy Blood (band) albums
2014 albums
{{2010s-black-metal-album-stub