Bleeding Through

Bleeding Through

Written by: AP on 19/10/2010 22:57:27

Bleeding Through are a big deal stateside. Over there the band has been hailed as ushering the future of metal and as innovators in a genre bursting with identikit. Granted, competition is scarce for a band fusing elements from hardcore, melodic death, symphonic black and gothic metal, but for some reason the band has yet to penetrate the market on this side of the pond. Could this be the reason for this relaunch? Was their "Declaration" of intent insufficient? I ask because it seems that the band is attempting to push the same album through under the eponymous this is us title, just with some cosmetic retouching and a number of minor stylistic revisions.

What is this guy on about, you may ask, but the truth is that the only thing setting this self-titled effort apart from its predecessor is that the songs are slightly less immense. The predominance of the symphonic element has been toned down while the hardcore influences have been given more space, with the result that the music no longer has the characteristics of a colossal wall. This is because the profusion of extreme metal elements like blast beats has been sacrificed in order to not repel potential, less hardened metal fans. Songs like "Salvation Never Found", "Divide the Armies" "Light My Eyes" and "Distortion, Devotion" recall the power ballads from "The Truth" that supposedly popularised Bleeding Through before the band decided to scrap the pop and go trve, which is an understandable choice as it only required four songs worth of compromise to make "Bleeding Through" a much more memorable affair than "Declaration". The remainder of songs still have a lot in common with an avalanche, though a much less destructive one.

Herein lies the problem though. Bleeding Through should not be concerned with pleasing the maximum amount of people, but with perfecting their art. On "Declaration" the band was at their best, differentiating themselves from their superficial mallcore pals through sheer extremity. Songs like "Anti-Hero" and "Drag Me to the Ocean" have enough power in them to blow the glow sticks out their hair and annihilate their nasal whine through fucking frequency cancellation, but the overall impression that "Declaration" gave was that its orchestral intro was but the fuse to a thermonuclear explosion which grew and grew until all the band's former pop sensibilities had vaporised. "Bleeding Through" is more like a thermobaric weapon: sufficiently destructive but lacking the fear factor.

7

Download: Anti-Hero, Salvation Never Found, Drag Me to the Ocean
For the fans of: All Shall Perish, The Arcane Order, The Breathing Process, Winds of Plague
Listen: Myspace

Release date 12.04.2010
Roadrunner

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