Punkish, Black, Brutal.
avgvstvs | Omaha NE | 02/10/2010
(5 out of 5 stars)
"I have to stress how rare it is that I like a band like "Bleeding Fist." It comes back to my base criteria: Do they do anything new? If no, Do they execute their style brilliantly?
Bleeding Fist is a band that funnels a very raw sound, it reminds me in many cases of playing metal in a buddies basement (which is exactly why the drums work here--normally I hate drums that sound like this, but this sounds so appropriate here.) However, unlike some other raw black metal bands I've listened to in the past year, these guys can ACTUALLY PLAY their guitars, and they play quite a bit with song structures, mixing things up enough to keep me interested throughout the entire 30 minutes. Production-wise it is "slightly" lo-fi. You can tell it was studio recorded and made to sound more lo-fi, mainly on the drums and the reverb chosen to place over the guitars. It actually works for this album! Notably present is the bass guitar in the mix: this band has a very powerful sound compared to most BM bands.
Thematically, one look at the album cover should be all you need here. For the important part: who do they sound like? If you took Mortuus from Marduk and put him in a band that played a little bit like Arckanum and 1349 with a very organic sounding guitar distortion (think Melechesh) you'd get this album.
I admit, the first pass through, I didn't really like it; if I don't like something on the first pass I'll play it again. It was on the subsequent listens that this band really became a favorite of mine."