I have been very fortunate and privileged to have covered most of this UK bands releases since 2017 and each time they have impressed me, developing further with added depths of sonic depravity you don’t often hear within the hybrid death and thrash scenes. ‘Monokrator’ is their third full length and I can truthfully say it is possibly one of the best and most incendiary albums of 2023, if not this decade so far, alongside the awesome new release by Exmortus ‘Necrophony’ due out in August. The bands previous two albums were superb deathrash annihilations but here the ante has been upped to stratospheric savagery. The Bleeding are possibly the most vicious UK extreme metal band in many years and it isn’t necessarily the speed that makes them like this it is the whole explosive package of skin stripping riffs, a drum demolition to give any death metal band a run for its money, the hostile salivating vocal causticity and the production which is utterly barbaric on all fronts.
Every tune smashes into the listener with unceremonious violence as opener ‘Chemical Lobotomy’ crashes in with no intro, no fade in, no weaning you in, it aims for the jugular and tears your throat out with its vicious riffing bonanza that feeds through this whole release. The bass riff start to ‘Chainsaw Deathcult’ is immense, as the outright ferocity is colossal, unerring and unforgiving. You rarely get a chance to breathe with this album which clocks in at just over 30 minutes and in that time you are left gasping for air.
‘Mutilation Chamber’ is up next and here the death metal styling pervades as those harsh vocals shroud the song in wrath alongside the very catchy riffing and unflinching power. Same applies to ‘Union Of Horror’ and Screams Of Torment’ each tune is as vitriolic as the next, the seemingly endless tirade of terror blends the thrash and death ethos brilliantly producing maximum impact and destruction. Some groove riffing appears within ‘On Wings Of Tribulation’ where sporadic blast beats elevate the violence further and if anything their use of blasted assaults only magnifies the intensity, choosing to deliver them at strategic points.
The title track is the penultimate tune here, the brief guitar intro sequence is quickly swatted aside to unveil a dense, abrasive and devastating onslaught where those aggressive insanely hostile vocals terrorise, leaving ‘Throes Of Repulsion’ to conclude this malevolent masterpiece. Where I expected the band to rein things in for the closer, they certainly do not, instead the closer has a build-up structuring, where you can feel something is going to happen. The inexorable intensity shows no weakening, no dilution as the track unfurls a very cool bass riff break before unleashing a screaming lead with insatiable velocities that career the album to its horrifying climax.
A stupendous third album from The Bleeding, fans of extreme thrash and death should be checking this out with no hesitation, it will pulverise you.
(9.5/10 Martin Harris)
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