ALBUM REVIEW: Shrine – Bleed From Within
Scottish metalcore mob BLEED FROM WITHIN seemed destined for the path of the unsung, a band producing dependably solid music without truly breaking through into mainstream consciousness. That all changed with their last album Fracture, where it seemed like they truly stepped into their own and produced a towering work of modern metalcore that set the standard for the UK scene. A searing main stage set at the Download Pilot ensued, replete with copious amounts of pyro and a sense that the band were finally getting their due.
From there, it was difficult to know where the band could go; would we see Fracture part 2, hoping to reproduce the success and majesty of the original, or would the band take the template they’d laid down and go off piste? The answer lies in sixth full-length Shrine, a bold leap for the band that keeps some familiar territory while incorporating new elements and genres. Take opener I Am Damnation; on first glance it’s the prototypical BLEED FROM WITHIN song in its groove and stomp, though the guitar melody in its intro carries new inflections. The chorus itself features orchestral strings, a recurring motif for the album that belies their lofty ambitions as a band.
Shrine keeps things high-energy with Sovereign and Levitate, two arena-ready anthems that feature squealing solos and gargantuan breakdowns. There are flourishes of the new areas to their sound, like the strings closing the latter, but it’s not until fourth track Flesh And Stone that the band toss a true curveball. The first and most obvious thing is simply – blastbeats. The song roars out the gates with a towering guitar lead underpinned by them before a breakneck verse and a chorus with more groove than Austin Powers.
Skye bisects the album with an ARCHITECTS-inspired interlude that sounds a little too close to recent album For Those That Wish To Exist but the band soon rectify this with Stand Down, another charging, anthemic number that shows their debt to groove masters LAMB OF GOD just as much as modern metalcore. The second half keeps the level of quality just as high; the arena-ready choruses of Stand Down and Death Defined, along with the more experimental but no less crowd-commanding Temple Of Lunacy and Killing Time. Closer Paradise deserves its own mention; eschewing the crushing riff – though not entirely – for more atmospheric pastures, its gang-shout chorus is sure to be screamed back from festival fields and indoor venues alike.
The key to Shrine’s success is in its grandiosity and fitting the new elements into the old; it’s not entirely seamless, like with Skye or the closing moments of Levitate that fly a little too close to ARCHITECTS territory for comfort, but it’s clear this is still very much BLEED FROM WITHIN in their element, with groove aplenty in their melodeath-inflected take on metalcore. Where Fracture, somewhat ironically, formed a tight, muscular brand of metalcore without the cracks of before, Shrine treats that as a starting point to go somewhere far more expansive and sets out a bright future for the band as one of the leading lights of British metal.
Rating: 8/10
Shrine is set for release on June 3rd via Nuclear Blast Records.
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