Originally released on Förlag För Fri Musik in 2017, »Leendet Från Helvetet« marked a new phase in the troubled Blod universe. There's few traces left of the found tapes/audial voyeurism and brutish stop/rec editing that made up the first few releases, instead we are served with what is pretty much a proper album in a, sort of, traditional sense.
The record opens with a sole beat from a hand drum soon accompanied by a beautiful and very Blod-ish subtle melody from a glockenspiel but it only takes a few minutes before Gustaf's past as a free jazz aficionado is noticeable with the rather rough saxophone burst of »Natten«. It's not until the title track that things kicks off for real though, most likely the first example of the sound and, maybe more so, very special feeling that most people associate Blod with nowadays. To me, it's the sound of growing up in Sweden in the 80's; having two channels on the TV, eating brown food, rainy summers, taping commercial stuff on the radio, playing D&D in a purple tent in the garden. Memories of that certain bright light that can occur during the Scandinavian summers, those warm days when the skies are foggy. Long windswept grass and a very peculiar feeling of utter boredom. Arguably, Blod has never sounded more Blod than on this track, this is the very essence of the man's work right here. The program continues on side B with the solemn piano piece 'Lust', another saxophone raga and then the flipside's centerpiece 'Tro, Hopp & Kärlek' which pretty much mirrors the title track in it's larger-than-life scope and pure beauty.
»Leendet Från Helvetet« is by far the most overlooked album in the Blod discography (well, if you can say that about a record that was only pressed in a mere 100 copies to begin with!). The blueprint to what would later evolve into the bombastic Knuta Nävar, the intimate Tusen Bitar, the highly confusing medieval masterpiece Missväxt, not to mention all the self-released cassettes and CD-Rs.
