Review of Bleed The Sky - Murder The Dance

The debut, Paradigm In Entropy from Orange County’s Bleed the Sky, was a much hyped unit moving a mix of nu-metal and hardcore that made me cringe. However, the follow up, while still the same Hot Topic alluring mix, offers up a few sturdy grooves amid its cookie cutter modern metal tones.

Though basically still luring fans of Chimaira, Drowning Pool and Mudvayne as well as Meshuggah, and then throwing in a few gravelly deathcore lurches and growls, Bleed the Sky appear to have at least improved their songwriting, though the first few tracks of the album would have you believe otherwise. Openers “Knife Fight in a Phone Booth” and “Sullivan” are heavy on stuttering grooves, but also on the pretty weak clean vocals. The title track then delivers a fierce climactic rumble, sans clean vocals, that shows when the band isn’t trying to be trendy or commercial, there’s some potential lurking under those beards.

Then “The Sleeping Beauty”, despite Noah Robinson’s late Phil Anselmo styled warble (which reappears on “Poseidon”) again offers another sturdy, lumbering track of staggering grooves. However, “Occam’s Razor” brings the almost impressive momentum to a screeching halt with a tepid ballad/acoustic number of sorts. “Bastion” makes a concerted effort to regain the heft, before the clean vocals and more nu-metal stylisms of “Slavior” and “Kettle Black” make an unwelcome return.

Nothing here gets quite as antagonistic and hefty as the likes of The Minor Times, The Handshake Murders, Apiary, or Gorjira and such. While the record still has a rather amicable tone and sound that will get them more attention than their heavier, angrier peers, I have to admit that the title track, “The Demons That Could Be” and a few other short lived grooves do get my head and shoulders bobbing, but Bleed The Sky are still an act I really don’t see the hype about, and more than likely never will.

Release Details

Bleed The Sky

Murder The Dance

Comments

Related