Review: Bleeding Through - Bleeding Through

Band: Bleeding Through
Album: Bleeding Through
Year: 2010
Country: USA
Genre: Metalcore

Metalcore gets a pretty bad rap at times but there are a few bands who stand out above all others. Bleeding Through happens to be among the elite of the metalcore scene. It mostly has to do with the fact that they meet an almost perfect blend of both metal and hardcore. Where most metalcore bands play plain boring and ultimately simple (beyond belief at times) hardcore with some metal elements thrown in.

First I need to mention I have The Truth and This Is Love, This Is Murderous but skipped over Declaration. If you've heard anything before Declaration you know BT is basically a mix of At the Gates styled melodic death metal, Hardcore, and some regular ole death metal.

But here you can tell the band are taking a heavier influence from black metal these days. A big reason is the keyboards and their role in the music. They provide a lot of atmosphere and a little melody like you would expect from some black metal bands. But it is also in the riffs. Most songs have hyper fast riffing that could be mistaken for something a proper black metal group would play mixed among the breakdowns and thrash riffs. Anti-Hero has a few instances of this, the tremolo riffs and they are sprinkled in different spots on the album. And the soloing is more fleshed out than on previous albums. They are both more numerous and interesting to listen to. Just take a listen to the solo in Divide the Armies.

Brian seems to have almost completely abandoned his lower growls for a higher pitched scream. I've never had a problem with his style and actually enjoyed his lows so I have to admit the higher sounding growls he uses here grate a little with me. They aren't a deal breaker and not even necessarily that bad its just a little high for my taste at times. The cleans are hardly there anymore as well. On Salvation Never Found, Divide the Armies, Light My Eyes, and Distortion Devotion they pop up but for the most part sparingly. I enjoy what they did here, only using cleans when they make the music better rather than going the formulaic route of just stuffing them in during the chorus.

The drumming is also really good too. There is a lot of blasting throughout the album but it isn't overkill, there is just enough. The bass is no where to be found of course but oh well.

With their sixth album Bleeding Through have created a heaping mass of aggressive, angry, and well put together metalcore. They've put together a number of different genres successfully and pretty seamlessly at that. While there are only a few tracks that stand out based on the style most of the album follows (Light My Eyes, Distortion, Devotion) they are just as good as anything else here and don't suffer for it. On their self titled the band has solidified their position as belonging to the small number of metalcore bands that you can be proud to listen to.

Score: 8.5/10
Standout Tracks: Light My Fire, Anti-Hero, Salvation Never Found