Sometimes, things come in small packages. That is the case for Poison Blood's self-titled EP, clocking in at just under 19 minutes of black metal goodness (evilness?) There's a bit of 90s Scandinavian black metal here, mixed with more modern, fast-paced blackened thrash and the result is quite addictive. The raspy vocals drag along a bit, sometimes reminding me of Graveland. The music is quite visceral and dark, but there's an omnipresent sense of melody that tones it down a bit and certainly helps keep things varied and interesting. The closer is kind of an outlier here. It's an instrumental that's rather beautiful and somewhat epic-sounding, though very dark and maybe even a bit depressing.

This is the band's first release and they're already signed, so let's hope for some more quality black metal from these guys in a near future.