First released by the Japanese label Pony Canyon in 2005 and receiving a belated U.S. issue two years later,
Blood Stain Child's
Idolator is the Japanese melodic death metal band's third album. Inhabiting an odd midpoint between
Skinny Puppy and
Pantera,
Blood Stain Child blend thrashy speed metal with heavy industrial dance and techno influences. Given the sense of sonic aggression at the heart of both styles of music, the combination works surprisingly well, tempering some of the histrionics of thrash and adding more melodic interest to the dance beats. The album's one drawback is endemic to both styles, however: ten songs' worth of this sort of thing (closed out with a complete deconstruction of
Luna Sea's "True Blue") gets a bit deadening toward the album's end. Taken on their own merits, however, songs like the pummeling "Embrace Me" are cross-genre powerhouses. [The American edition adds a video for the album's first single, "Truth."]