Review Summary: Packing and lacking.
If one were to point at metalcore as one of the most artistic genres of music, slow quiet walks out of a room would simultaneously ensue. No doubt, the majority of bands within this field are easily dismissible as derivative and trite. Honest merit for these groups has mostly amounted to what might help an athlete, who has blast-hungry ears, keep their bench presses going. So surely Bleed the Sky provide some sort of a break for their uninspired genre, or just stick to substandard issue firearms.
Or both.
The most immediate note to make of
Paradigm in Entropy, Bleed the Sky's first full-length album, is that they aren't impacting their genre. As with anything else here, this acknowledgement goes both ways. Spoiling what a listener will find in an album such as this is almost ironic. What the band offers up even on the more-stellar opening track, "Minion," is the exact sound, style and quality anyone could expect. Everything here is tried-and-true to their shallow roots. Anger, slow and fast riffs throughout, some variations on vocal styles/pitches; the usual suspects.
If there's anything that might throw even genre-fans for the occasional eyebrow-raising, it's the variety present. Even most of the better groups in metalcore (your cue, August Burns Red) fall into a gigantic rut, one of not spicing their meal so seconds will be unavoidable. This is what
Paradigm in Entropy does better than almost all of its siblings. Although
everything here is exactly what even inexperienced listeners can expect, we're treated to what can make the album look and taste like Golden Corral, as opposed to CiCi's. Vocalist Noah Robinson really carries the band here, even with instrumental pieces providing more color to each dish, eh, I mean, track.
Of course, this also means that almost nothing truly rises, even to match the quality of Olive Garden. In fact, the album seems to slump in some areas, namely during the last three tracks. These points turn out giving us an even less-satisfactory taste than the aforementioned fast food siblings. As a result, we're left yearning more flavor and content in our audio bellies. Just like a full-fledged buffet, some dishes will be tasty while others do little more than tarnish your stomach.
