Bloodnstuff

"BLOODNSTUFF"
Another Twin Cities duo that proves less can be more in the volume department, Bloodnstuff -- guitarist Ed Holmberg and drummer Dylan Gouret -- took the club scene by storm last year with their giant, metallic fuzz-rock sound. Their debut album turned things up even louder. Standout tracks such as "It's Fun to Be a Kid" and "Bloodnstuff" -- yes, they have their own eponymous song -- mine the thundering territory of Soundgarden, Queens of the Stone Age and the Misfits. - Star Tribune

A few days after steamrolling over everyone at the recent Best New Bands showcase at First Avenue, Bloodnstuff reached their Kickstarter goal, which helped them pay for the mixing and mastering of their highly anticipated debut record. That boisterous album (which was set to be released this month) should be a welcome shot in the arm to the Twin Cities' thriving but slightly staid music scene. The blistering two-piece features singer-guitarist Ed Holmberg and drummer Dylan Gouret, both ex-members of the short-lived experimental band Economy Team. The duo have been making music together for more than 10 years, and that easy affinity informs their incendiary, raucous sound, as Bloodnstuff smoothly transition from slower, bluesy rhythms to massive, Sabbath-like riffs that make you wonder if all that racket can be generated by only two people. Gouret's piercing vocals are reminiscent of Ronnie James Dio's and perfectly complement the churning metal pulse he and Holmberg generate so exuberantly. Soon the Twin Cities will belong to Bloodnstuff. Consider yourself warned. - City Pages

One of the most promising bands in the Twin Cities right now is Bloodnstuff, riding a wave of accolades that extend from City Pages' Best Rock Band award a few days ago to an abundance of positive reviews on their live shows. The two-piece is made up of guitarist Ed Holmberg and drummer Dylan Gouret, and they make a sound so expansive that it’s difficult not to be dumbfounded when realizing the size of the act.

“Give Me A Call” is a solid way to start their debut, self-titled record. With a driving rhythm section and a guitar that steadily breaks through the haze, the track’s instrumentation propels itself into Holmberg’s singing almost a minute in and never lets up. When you listen to this song without a sequencing context, you would think it a perfect closer. After all, if the energy is this high, it’s got to be concluding something right?

Nope. Instead, Bloodnstuff offers this just as a preview of what’s to come. The album continues to grow and exceed expectations, creating a sense of breathlessness in the listener that I’m sure is matched on stage.

Bloodnstuff will be the in-studio guests on The Local Show Sunday, May 13 from 6-8 p.m. Download "Give Me A Call" from our Song of the Day page and subscribe to the podcast while you're at it. - 89.3 The Current: Local Current Blog

There's something aesthetically pleasing about the fact that Bloodnstuff bandmates Ed Holmberg and Dylan Gouert used to be in a band called Economy Team. The pair have an obvious shared talent for filing the rough edges away and using a minimal amount of tools create a big, purposeful sound.

Describing what Bloodnstuff isn't is almost a more direct route to discovering what they actually are. They're not metal, though the utilize some of the genre's mathmatic, jagged riffs; they're much cleaner and more precise than stoner rock, despite the fact that their majestic material could easily be used to score a film about wizards, scrolls, and mountainous landscapes; and though Holmberg clearly knows how to craft a tight hook, they're much heavier than the average pop or indie rock act. What we're left with is an efficient, hard-hitting style of good 'ol fashioned rock 'n' roll that would have found a comfortable home on the Amphetamine Reptile label in the '90s and whose contemporary brethren are bands like Buildings, Seawhores, and Gay Witch Abortion.

Bloodnstuff rock hard, and with great intention. And after a few years of drafting songs, throwing them out, drafting new songs, and finally beginning to play live, Bloodnstuff have settled on a batch of tunes that they like enough record and release. Bloodnstuff is the fruit of several cycles of self-editing and live labor, and it was worth the wait.

The title track (which makes me giddy for the simple fact that it's Bloodnstuff's song "Bloodnstuff" off the record Bloodnstuff) is one of the duo's most recognizable tunes to date, and is followed quickly by another live favorite, "Fire Out at Sea." It says something about Holmberg's songwriting that these tunes sound immediately familiar to anyone who has seen the band perform, and the propulsive energy of their live show transaltes effectively. The poppiest tracks on the album are probably "It's Fun to be a Kid" and "One Day Roses," both of which have crossover potential and could easily appeal to the 93X crowd, while "Diet Cola" veers into early '00s indie rock territory.

My only complaint with the record is that the sound is so precisely defined that Bloodnstuff starts to feel redundant by the closing tracks, especially with the catchiest songs grouped at the beginning and middle of the record, and seems most enticing in short bursts. The same could be said for their live show; one of the best sets I'd ever seen the band play was on Sunday night at Nick and Eddie, where they showed up unannounced, played their four best songs back-to-back, and loaded out. But for a debut, especially, this album has little filler and numerous shining moments.

Bloodnstuff were ranked sixth in last fall's Picked to Click poll and named one of this year's Best New Bands by First Avenue, and their album will probably get some requisite mentions this week because of those accolades. But one gets the sense that Holmberg and Gouert aren't really dazzled by those nominations, and to write them off as a buzz band would do a great disservice to this band's musical accomplishments to date. Bloodnstuff is a fine record and one of my favorites to be released in the Twin Cities this year. - 89.3 The Current: Local Current Blog

Music: Heavy Endurance
April 5, 2012
Bloodnstuff labored long and hard on thunderous self-titled debut.
By Michael Rietmulder


If patience is a virtue, cosmically heavy duo Bloodnstuff might be the Gandhi of the local music scene.

Although the quasi-gruesome moniker doesn't really jibe with the Mahatma's nonviolence shtick, the latest project from guitarist/singer Ed Holmberg and drummer Dylan Gouert -- which in a sense took a decade to realize -- has been a test in temperance for the prodigious pair.

In the wake of their math-rock group Economy Team, the friends who have played together in various bands since their high school days at the Perpich Center for Arts Education decided to reinvent themselves as a two-piece. They spent a year cultivating their mellifluously metallic sound a few nights a week in the studio before ever performing live.

"We've been playing out for 10 years, so we already know how to be in shitty bands and we didn't want to do it again," Gouert said over an afternoon breakfast on the CC Club's patio. (What? Rocker dudes can't brunch?)

While Holmberg admits to getting stir-crazy during their gig-less period, a recording process his drummer describes as "hell" may have been more trying. Early last year the Bloodnstuff boys hit the studio to record an album's worth of material that would never see the light of day. They slowly realized the recording didn't capture the massive sound they'd hoped for, and penned three songs the week after wrapping that "sounded too good" to omit.

Taking an expensive Mulligan, they returned to Sound Gallery with a handful of new songs, setting up in the lobby instead of a proper recording room, to track what is now their thunderously melodic, Kickstarter-funded, self-titled debut, which they'll celebrate with Friday's CD release gig at the Triple Rock. "I think this is the first thing that we've recorded that we've actually enjoyed listening to," Gouert says.

A vinyl pressing is expected in a few months to coincide with a "national release -- whatever that means," Holmberg says.

"We'll get people from Wisconsin to come," quips his mate.

Setting the tone for the booming album is opening arioso "Give Me a Call," a Wolfmother-esque tune exemplifying Holmberg's nasally, bellow-from-the-mountaintop vocal style. The eponymous title track follows with the melody prancing away from, before syncing up with, a Josh Homme-style riff, while "One Day Roses" is a galactic stoner opus with Gouert's tribal tom-work adding a primal birr to the duo's techie ambitions.

"Usually every riff that I write ends up being too hard for me to play right away, so it takes a long time to practice, and mold," Holmberg said. "If it's not hard at first it isn't worth doing."

Though the individual parts may be tough to master, and the rehearsing/recording process a bit laborious, the chemistry the two have built over their 10-year-plus history together has helped them streamline their songwriting approach -- especially now that it's just the two of them.

"It really does influence the way that," Holmberg began, pausing to order another Greyhound as the waitress plopped a veggie omelet in front of him. "Me and Dylan have always worked really well together. We're able to communicate without saying more than a couple words to get the idea across."

While the real Gandhi's hardships may have been a bit more arduous (fasting, imprisonment and whatnot), if his longanimity could lead to an independent India, surely Bloodnstuff's should help them move a couple CDs, right? - Vita.mn

Bloodnstuff release new album
Band's overstuffed sound comes from just two people
A A A Comments By Jeff Gage Wednesday, Apr 4 2012

Minneapolis punk-metal duo Bloodnstuff only seems to have come out of nowhere. In recent months, the duo's grungy, breakneck performances have made them one of the area's most talked-about live acts, yet they haven't released a single recorded song anywhere other than MySpace. In reality, Bloodnstuff has been 10 years in the making.
"Every band we've been in has been considered a reincarnation of the previous band," drummer Dylan Gouert says, sitting on the patio at CC Club with his bandmate, Ed Holmberg. It's a sunny Saturday afternoon, and his bright blue eyes squint from the light that shines through under the umbrella. "Every time we start over, it's because we lose someone and don't replace them. Eventually it got whittled down to a two-piece band."

"This band is kind of an experiment," says Holmberg, who plays guitar and sings lead vocals. His hair is buzzed short on one side, which you can see even under his corduroy cap, and a series of bright tattoos sticks out on his arms from under his rolled-up shirt sleeves. "We've always experimented with stuff, but this one has gone in a different direction: We're trying to be a big, poppy rock band with just two people instead of trying to be weird." He chuckles to himself momentarily, taking a drink of his coffee. "Because of our background," he adds, "it's actually weirder to play the stuff we're playing now than to just write weird stuff."

Indeed, the most remarkable thing about Bloodnstuff's oversized sound is that it comes from only two people, yet there's hardly any wasted space. Holmberg's fire-and-brimstone riffing and cavernous hollers are drenched in Master of Reality-era Sabbath, and Gouert's drums sound like Neil Peart with a single kit, but never excessive. Small wonder, then, that the two started playing in bands together when they were still in high school, and have only ever played in bands with each other since. Chemistry like this takes time.

"If it were just me, I'd probably be meandery and goofy," Holmberg says about his songwriting. "[Gouert] knows the weird ways I write stuff. Often I'll come to practice with a grasp on the timing of a riff, and he helps me figure it out and make it listenable."

"I'll push him to play faster," Gouert adds, sweeping his long, wavy hair across his forehead. "A lot of times he'll come to the studio and he'll say, 'I can't play this any faster.' So I tell him, 'Yeah, you can,' and he comes back the next time and plays it at the fucking speed of light," he chuckles proudly, folding his arms tightly inside his jean jacket.

The pair worked on their new songs for over a year before ever playing live. "Yeah," Homberg says, "we're perfectionists about everything." He flicks an ash from his cigarette into the ashtray on the table. "We'll practice a song, and once it's done, we'll play it at least 30 more times. We'll play it a hell of a lot before we ever play it live, even if the first time is the same as the 50th. We want to make sure we're solid on every little part, so none of it bugs us."

Their original plan had been to release an album before they even started playing live gigs, but those early recordings got scrapped. "We wrote three more songs within a week [of recording] that wound up being some of the best of this album. You can't have the best songs not be on the album," Holmberg says with a shrug. Gouert is even more emphatic: "We need that," he insists, dismissing the notion that their attention to detail might prevent them from making faster progress. "If we were willing to settle, we would've put out the first version of the album. If we didn't toss out half the songs we write, we'd put out shitty songs — we've probably written 20 songs and only played 10 of them."

To that end, there's about half an album's worth of new Bloodnstuff material already partially writ - City Pages

Bloody awesome

Following in the earplug-demanding tradition of local duos the Birthday Suits and Gay Witch Abortion, the metallic fuzz-bleeding twosome Bloodnstuff comes storming out of the gate this week with a debut album that once again makes the case for the littlest bands in town often being the biggest, sonicaly speaking.

Guitarist Ed Holmberg and drummer Dylan Gouret, both formerly of the artier (and wimpier) Economy Team, were already a standout at First Ave's Best New Bands showcase in January, and their self-titled collection shows why. Tracks range from the thundering, hazy Queens of the Stone Age-like anthem "Bloodnstuff" -- you can go ahead and call them a metal band with a namesake song like that -- to the slower and moodier "It's Fun to Be a Kid," where Holmberg bellows like Ozzy Osbourne and manhandles his guitar like Kim Thayil of Soundgarden.

Proof that these guys can keep up with the larger noise-making ensembles in town, their release party Friday at the Triple Rock will feature Marijuana Deathsquads and the Stnnng for openers (10 p.m., $7). Bloodnstuff is also on the just-announced lineup for the free Lyn-Lake Street Festival May 20, along with Kid Dakota, Halloween, Alaska, Omaur Bliss and Mayda.

chrisr@startribune.com • 612-673-4658 • Twitter: @ChrisRstrib - Minneapolis Star Tribune

Bloodnstuff

by Christopher Vondracek April 24, 2012


If you haven’t listened to “heavy” bands lately, the eponymous debut album by Bloodnstuff will immediately make you realize how pointless iPods are. From anvil-pounding opener “Give Me a Call” to aptly titled “Titans,” Bloodnstuff will offer the most serious argument you’ve heard in a long time for investing in a hi-fi sound system. With demonic guitar riffs, smashing drums, and the vocals of Ed Holmberg (aping a turkey-leg-and-chalice-of-mead version of Fall Out Boy’s Patrick Stump), Bloodnstuff seems more like a postcard from the band’s much hotter, sexier, louder, 120-mph, skull-crushing live show than a product you’ll listen to over and over again. It’s not all headbanging-by-the-dashboard-light, though. On “Diet Cola,” drummer Dylan Gouert lays down a bare-bones disco beat while Holmberg moodily searches for patterns: “Soon you’ll find a better reason to be alive / Busking in the glory of a new archetype.”

Bloodnstuff—and sit down for this—is a duo. That’s impressive, but a bit of the novelty factor doest exist here. Twin Cities practice spaces are filled with cinder-crumbling metal bands channeling Sabbath with precision, and Bloodnstuff’s emergence in the indie-centric scene seems to draw zoo-phenomenon buzz. And, Holmberg’s vocals—while potent—sometimes come up empty. On “Not The Cow People,” he canticles, “The true understanding was censored by the Church... She’s no savior / We were meant to save her,” which comes off as a bit “Stonehenge”-ish. But the thing is that in the very same song, they ignite for 30 seconds on a three-note riff so obnoxiously heavy that you can practically hear the recording ribbon bend from its weight. Bloodnstuff may be the band’s vestal emissary—but what a dark, skull-necklace-wearing, and bedazzling emissary she is.
- The Onion: AV Club