Review Summary: “Beyond the ruins lies our victory, just out of reach.”
A rash of new bands in the last couple of years - Dangerkids, Sworn In, Gift Giver, etc. - have been trying out a mixture of nu-metal and metalcore, a style whose boundaries are possibly even more muddled than its parent sub-genres. It’s difficult to say where exactly “nu-metalcore” begins or what bands fall into it at this stage, but I think it’s safe to say that Bleed the Sky was doing it several years earlier, and better than a lot of nu-metalcore groups today.
Bleed the Sky basically graft the nu-metal “bounce” onto metalcore to generally positive results. Truthfully, it wasn’t all that novel a trick in 2005 since the nu-metal components aren’t as pronounced as they are in Bleed the Sky’s musical successors; but Bleed the Sky are energetic and respectably technical, an advantage over most of the modern scene. Frankly, the nu-metal influence is pretty subtle, only apparent in the band’s sense for simple, anthemic grooves and aggressive lyrical themes, which run the gamut from failed relationships to religion-bashing. It’s standard stuff, but well-suited to Bleed the Sky’s music.
Excluding the ballad-y “The Martyr,” which features the most extensive use of Noah Robinson’s off-key cleans, Bleed the Sky are predictable songwriters, borrowing equally from their split heritage: a little electronic blooping usually gives way to a somewhat technical main riff, which sticks around for the three-to-four minute duration of the song. Verses are screamed and choruses are sung. “Minion,” like the best openers, samples everything the album has to offer: crunchy riffing, swift drumming, and a shrieking and singing vocalist that sounds a bit like Mark Hunter and a bit like David Draiman.
There is no rapping whatsoever, and solos are rare - just two by my count, at the back-ends of “Minion” and the title track. Neither function as the climax of their respective songs, or even as highlights. It's the riffs that matter here, and while they can be unremarkably chuggy, as in “Killtank” and “Leverage,” they can also be infectiously violent, as in standouts “Division,” “God in the Frame,” and “Borrelia Mass,” keeping the album’s replay value surprisingly high. These three songs finish the album on the best note possible, with fidgety time signatures and intense delivery to spare. Even the return of some clean singing on "Borrelia Mass" can't slow it down.
Bleed the Sky seem to have a knack for revealing album titles. While it’s all metalcore at the end of the day, with less nu- than others in this burgeoning scene a decade later, they play it convincingly and only occasionally overreach. There’s a lot of potential here that isn’t mined for the band’s sophomore album,
Murder the Dance, where they trade in their nu-metal groove for an awkward southern-rock swagger, a bit of a trend circa 2008 and an ill-advised change signaled by that album's conspicuously awkward title. Having sadly disbanded,
Paradigm in Entropy stands as their best effort, and has aged better than might be expected of an early experiment in nu-metalcore, whatever that is today, and wherever it’s going.
