Scottish Metallers Step Up
Progression is a funny thing when it comes to music, some bands find solace and blossom within it while others find it to be their achilles heel, the progressive tide can be very smooth or very rough without a great deal of warning. It's great to say then that on Uprising Bleed From Within fall straight into the former department. Finally fulfilling their potential with a monstrous modern metal album that drips with confidence and is full to the absolute brim with killer vocal hooks that make public transport a battle in trying not to scream along and riffs that may as well be scythes in their devastating precision.
Envisioning a mighty three-way brawl between Killswitch Engage's melodic breaks, Lamb Of God's planet-sized heaviness and Slipknot's unmistakable crush and terrifying ferocity, BFW aim right for the throat throughout the album and vocalist Scott Kennedy's rallying "SO PUT YOUR FIST IN THE AIR IF YOU'RE ON THE SAME PAGEEEEEE" on opener proper Colony is a ground-shaking way to kick this off, the track is a beast and opens the curtain on the Scottish quintet's newly sculpted sound perfectly. Lead single It Lives In Me towers in sinister melodies and drops in earth-shattering valleys, Kennedy setting in a hugely convincing statement to join the Winston McCall school of non-clean brilliant vocal hooks while drummer Ali Richardson hammers the drum-kit behind him. The record doesn't relent, at all, save for some brilliantly placed interludes of breath, and if you're a fan of full-on metal that's akin to a wolf that won't stop chasing its prey, blood dripping from mouth, you're going to love this. Crucially, it's massively lyrically engaging too, I Am Oblivion's images from the perspective of ruin urging us to get everything we can out of life are endearing and uplifting and Kennedy's convictions that he's "not afraid of the world around us" and that the harder side of life is "what defines you" in Our Divide shine a light of true optimism through the riffs and roars.
This is an impressive record that sets a firm basis for Bleed From Within to really begin to elevate from and puts them well out front in the metal ranks in doing so, a huge step-up.