Bleeding Through – The Great Fire

It seems like someone’s trying to test me here, as this is an album I can barely believe was created by Bleeding Through. Not because they are not a good band, but mainly because they have surely caught me by suprise with their energy, their ideas and the way they have managed to put them all down and create a marvellous album. Everything here sounds amazing, the band from California is currently in their best shape since their creation in 1999 and on their seventh album ”The Great Fire”, it seems that the lucky seven term finds its definition to the six skilled musicians, as it seems it’s the time for them to enjoy such a success by turning the world’s eyes straight at them and maybe gain the biggest possible publicity that will lead them to better stuff in the future.

The rise in Bleeding Through’s music is not something new, and if I want to point out the reasons why this happened, I think the gap between their first three albums -”Dust To Ashes” (2001), ”Portrait Of The Goddess” (2002) and ”This Is Love, This Is Murderous” (2003)- to the next three ones -”The Truth” (2006), ”Declaration” (2008) and ”Bleeding Through” (2010)- plus the entering of Marta Peterson on the keyboards, lead them to a new level of composing, with their music sounding always fresh in their three next albums. Maybe the fact that there was also a gap of two years between each album since 2006 plays an also important part. And here comes ”The Great Fire” in 2012 to become one of the best albums of the year for sure.

The album opens with the short intro ”The March” and as soon as it ends, ”Faith In Fire” is the first reason to keep your mouth wide open and be definitely suprise with their skills. Followed by phenomenal tracks like ”Goodbye To Death”, ”Final Hours” (one of the hits of the album already), and surprising tracks with an ultra blackish metal touch on them, such as ”Walking Dead” (the longest track on the album) and ”Step Back In Line”, you can’t help but admitting that these guys have taken elements from various metal genres and successfully assempled them in their music. To be honest, I’m a bit shocked, as on the one hand I could kinda see this coming, but on the other hand I could never believe there would be such a performance and open mind by them.

As far as the members are concerned, Brandan Schieppati leads the whole album with his convincing vocals, a major improvement done through each album, to reach a point where he sounds like he’s going to come out of the speakers and devour you. The two guitarists Brian Leppke and Dave Nassie have added some great guitar leads on the album, a sample that they have also improved very much, by creating compositions that not only get obsessive for the middle fan, but will also prove to be real dynamites for their gigs. Stuff like ”Deaf Ear” for example is so aggressive and fast that could be written by a thrash band, on the other hand, we the rhythm section which keeps on following the guitars relentlessly and if you add the great production, you have a massive impenetratable wall in front of you, which is heading straight to your face.

Not even Marta Peterson’s keyboards will annoy you, as she uses them where needed, sometimes creating a lower stream which follows the rest instruments and creates extra atmosphere, and on other parts a little more discreet like on ”One On One” for example. ”The Great Fire” might become the best album Bleeding Through have released in your conscience, surely though it’s their mostly fresh and surprising. While listening to it more times, you’ll discover stuff you hadn’t focused on the first listenings. The closing of the album with ”Entrenched” and ”Back To Life” proves in the best possible way that Bleeding Through have a lot to offer in the very near future. I have to point out their improvement and the possibility to release an album close to Lamb Of God’s inspiration is closer than ever, soon enough.