Bleak are one of the heaviest bands in the core scene of recent memory, picking up the mantle left behind by bands such as Ion Dissonance and Despised Icon but differing from them in that they take a denser, more sludge influenced approach to ridiculously heavy metalcore. This benefits them greatly in that the lack of constant tempo changes and technical riffs favoured by other bands allows them to create their sense of power through walls of thick sound backed up by the vocalist's extremely deep and powerful roars. In general Bleak don’t really let up much throughout the 30 minute run time on “We Deserve Our Failures”, their debut LP, constantly smashing through tracks with all the restraint of an alcoholic at a free bar.
“Guilt Tripper” in particular has a ridiculously heavy, stomping hardcore riff that makes me want to move like nothing has done in a while, an absolute head banger of a track that is kept moving through the vocalist’s war-cry like call outs and viciously caustic screams. Although Bleak don’t rely on the mathematical acrobatics of other former heavyweights of the style they still occasionally indulge in spastic aggression, the album itself starting off as if it’s collapsing in on itself immediately. All this is done in an extremely dense and crushing tone the whole time, that although eventually gets somewhat repetitive for most of the time either exemplifies the band’s harsh quality or on longer tracks such as "Century of Youth" creates a suffocating atmosphere for them to spread their misery.
Misery being the flavour of the month lyrically and tone wise, although if you hadn’t guessed that based on the both the band and album’s name already then you can’t be the sharpest tool in the shed. Closing track “Eternal Silent Darkness” is a misanthropic piece at odds with the rest of the album, focusing on the concept of death over its monolithic ten minute structure it starts off with a singular vibrating pulse that repeats over an echoing audio clip that tell us “essentially nothing” awaits us when we die, so “there’s nothing to worry about there’s nothing to fear”. At first this almost feels liberating in its tone if you can disregard the ominous and otherworldly intermittent pulsing, but this is quickly eviscerated as we are then told “death is therefore not a problem, life is the problem” and that you “can’t help but notice things are going very wrong in this place”. This is the one track where Bleak also introduce any other instrument than the standard kit, with some hauntingly empty piano coming in to drive the point home before breaking into a lumbering closing movement that repeatedly towers down on you.
It’s a fitting way to end an album that as far as I can make out is just as depressing the rest of the time, as when I do understand the vocals in those moments where he enunciates words in the way an insane orator might we are treated to such gems as “we are forever indebted, to the great equalizer” and “bleeding from ten thousand lacerations”. These moments where you can actually understand the lyrics make a nice change of pace, as does the piercing, staccato guitar work strewn across the album which starkly contrasts with the wall of sound we are otherwise exposed to. That’s the main problem with "We Deserve Our Failures" in all honestly, that Bleak aren’t especially adept at straying from their core sound so things unfortunately get suffocatingly repetitive and parts of the album meld together in an incomprehensible mess. Which is why when Bleak do let up on the final track for some breathing space it’s one of the most affecting parts of the album, though not to say that when they are going for your throat it isn’t just as memorable.
