 
Orange County bruisers Bleeding Through have embarked
on a mission to redeem themselves with their new
album “The Great Fire”, after problems
with their label they’re back to prove they’re
ready to dominate. Their last album “Bleeding
Through” was a decent effort but spiralled
even further away from their roots; the band started
as a pretty heavy metalcore act but since then
they have grown and adapted with the current scene.
It all started with “The Truth” which
was still more of the same but with additional
techniques and hardcore influences, the transition
really took effect on 2008’s “Declaration”
which far surpassed anything the band had ever
done, it was amazing. “Bleeding Through”
however followed it up and apart from a few songs
I felt the rest was leaning too far in the wrong
direction, it was too hard to follow.
Again it’s not the artwork that matters
but it is an influence on sales and I must say
“The Great Fire” has a really truly
brilliant album cover, the best in the bands collection
which is a promising start. Now I’m far
more interested in the music, are they going to
completely fly off the handle now they’re
free from restraints or produce the album on the
careers? From what I’ve heard I can proudly
say its the latter of the 2! Here is some of the
highest quality recordings the band have ever
put out with easily their best sound, they took
“Declaration” mixed it with “The
Truth” and then took it even further; the
use of aggressive gang vocals and really sinister
keyboard backing takes the aggression and gives
it a melodic yet menacing sound, a really vicious
sound, “Final Hours” demonstrates
this extremely well; clean vocals, gang vocals
and lots of keyboard input, I’d have said
this was the best on the album but then “Starving
Vultures” kicks in and completely blows
it all away, what a lyric too “I’m
only here to ruin your life, things won’t
get better, for your worthless life”.
Even “Everything You Love Is Gone”
which I initial didn’t like thinking it
was just a bit too chaotic has now grown on me,
it only has a 1:49 duration as well, as does “One
By One” and “Faith in Fire”
which are all amazing tracks and feel much longer
than they are. Screw everything that came before,
I think this album is the debut of the new and
improved Bleeding Through as they set out to reclaim
their once well established status in the metal
world, if albums like this keep coming they’ll
surpass what they once were in not time at all.
5/5
Review by James Webb
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