Album of the Week #10.

Bleed From Within- Empire.

Oh how I love this band. This album is the culmination of the development of a refined sound with bassy riffs and powerful vocals. I’d say that this album is pure modern metal. The Glasgow band bring some intense fury to an ever-mainstreaming alternative scene. This is just brutal.

Scott Kelly’s vocals flow from gutteral shouts to strained screams. The guitars bring some Killswitch-esque spideryness over fuzzy riffs and some brutal beatdowns. The riffs are chuggy and fast in true metal style. There’s the occasional surprise mini-bass tune which is a bit of a signature of Bleed From Within. My favourite songs on the album are ‘The Novelist’ and ‘The Healing’, the latter being the debut single off the album. This album has some of the best riffs I’ve ever heard on it, for example on ‘The Weaker One’ and the end riff on ‘The Healing’ is just unbelievable. If you want to know what this album is all about then check out ‘The Healing’- I know I keep going on about it but its amazing!! The drums are pounding and fast, and the bass is just dirty. Some parts of this album seem black metal inspired such as the openings of ‘Emporer’ and ‘Vanity’. I like how this band haven’t gone down the clean-vocals route like most other metal bands these days. Don’t get me wrong, I love a clean vocals/screaming combo, but it’s nice that at least one band out there are purists.

You should really also check out their other recordings including 2008’s ‘Welcome to the Plauge Year’ EP which is the first effort I heard by these guys; and their full length follow-up 2009’s ‘Humanity’. I’d really love to see this band live but they don’t seem to play near me or advertise their tours extensively. Overall, this album is brutus maximus so get headbanging to this shit!