(Roadrunner/Warner)

Cali breakdown bruisers bring the death

From the outset, Bleeding Through’s sixth full-length record has a more-metal-than-thou feel to it. The cover is adorned with staple images of death metal iconography; maggots (check), skulls (check), dead animals (check), a scythe (double check). The track listing is full of death metal grimness. But that’s nothing new. One should expect the same genre-mashed, haphazard amalgam of death metal and hardcore? Because this is just another example of a metalcore band posturing themselves behind an image heavier than their sound, right? Wrong. Bleeding Through surprisingly carries through on its own promise. Unlike the last few BT efforts – notably 2008’s Declaration and 2006’s The Truth, which sprinkled death metal flourishes over a dubious pastiche of core-suffixed genres – the six-piece’s self-titled record is a fierce slab of post-Gothenburg melodic death metal. The strength of Bleeding Through’s conviction bleeds from the speakers, and sticking close to the melodic death metal sound makes this self-titled album their most cohesive and punishing. Cuts like Anti-Hero draw influence from Darkest Hour’s slam riff-heavy output, where the triggered double kicks and keyboard driven ambience of Your Abandonment shares a grandiosity with latter-day Dimmu Borgir. With Marta Peterson’s keyboards pushed to the back of the mix, the self-titled record is occupied by the tag team riff-o-rama of guitarist Brian Leppke and new guitarist and Suicidal Tendencies alum Dave Nassie. Even if the occasional clean vocal sneaks its way onto tracks like Salvation Never Found, Bleeding Through sounds like the Californian crew’s finest hour. Infernal hailz to them.

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TOM HERSEY

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