Bleeding Through - The Great Fire

Metalcore heavyweights Bleeding Through released their seventh album today entitled The Great Fire. The album is chock full of crushing metalcore that encroaches on the divide between metalcore and deathcore while making a pretty big return to their hardcore roots with a hint of black metal influence thrown in on top. This album is straight to the point and surprisingly short for a fourteen track album, primarily because most of the songs hover around the two minute mark.

The album does a great job creating an atmosphere and maintaining it throughout. The placement of songs works and everything flows very well throughout. The production is good too, although Bleeding Through has a problem with distinguishing guitars, they sort of just meld together in the mix, but in a way that doesn't seem to be a huge problem because the songs are so loud and in your face.

The guitars are not trying to be overly technical, it's loud and heavy with a nice solo here and there. Particularly on 'The Devil and Self Doubt', which has the best solo on the album.

The drums are solid, providing a good backbone to the whole album, but they never really do anything hugely impressive or standout. Although the blast beats are pretty great when they are used.

The vocals are one of the stronger points of the album, similarly to Randy Blythe on Lamb Of God's new album, Brandan seems to be more forward in the mix and delivers a really good vocal performance.

The keyboards are both awesome and one of the weaker points of the album. The second track 'Faith In Fire' for instance  seems to have the keyboards doing their own thing in the background, but on the seventh track 'Walking Dead' they start off the song perfectly and work well throughout. Overall though I think they help the album establish a good atmosphere and aren't hugely distracting on the few songs where it's a bit off putting.

Overall I really enjoyed the album, I'm not sure if I like it better than Declaration but I do enjoy it more than their self titled, which was pretty good, but lackluster compared to the beast that is Declaration. Fans of the band will surely enjoy this new album.

I'm glad these guys are still going and still able to make a quality album seven albums in. Be sure to check it out, it's in stores with a DVD of alive show included, and it's it's free on the wonderful thing that is Spotify.