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BLEED FROM WITHIN
Fracture
2020, The Orchard

I never gave BLEED FROM WITHIN a fair shake - I always chuckled at the band name because, well, where else do you bleed from? Alas, I check myself and realize I like a band called PARTY CANNON and move on with my life. I have realized two things: BLEED FROM WITHIN are not fucking around. NWOAHM is ubiquitous and every band you love owes the movement as much now as previous generations owe NWOBHM. There is really no argument to be made to the contrary, tendrils of the main tenets of the form snaking their way around every riff and blast in recent memory no matter how subtle, small portions of warm recognition that keep fans coming back and turning more people onto the new band of the moment as well. And so it goes with Fracture which, as its name suggests is not perfect, and nor should it be.

Hailing from Scotland, BLEED FROM WITHIN play groove oriented metal, all meat and potatoes. With that in mind, at times the overall impact is one of bloating but ultimately satisfying for those tasty, meaty riffs and subtle accent points in the rhythm section. If mosh pits were still a thing, every track on Fracture is worthy - pulling influence from everywhere from DARK TRANQUILLITY to LAMB OF GOD and every place in between. And maybe that is the point, as the discussion of what is and is not metal becomes more and more moot - the definition itself is fractured whether by elitists or the newest and most green. It is within these grey areas that BLEED FROM WITHIN truly shine because although they are doing nothing new, what they are doing is exciting to listen to and begs multiple listens.

Fracture is built around riffs, not crunch. The production values really pop and nothing is too compressed. Flourishes of electronic ambiance are welcome and briefly remind me of DARKANE a little bit (never a bad thing) but overall this thing just screams modern metal (itself a difficult term to, umm, term) and as such has a wide lens of potential fans. Hopefully The Orchard has a big enough reach to get BLEED FROM WITHIN a wider audience, and hopefully these few words help out in some way. I genuinely enjoy this album and will be looking into the back catalogue of the band. FFO, well, everything currently popular in the metal mainstream.

3.0 Out Of 5.0