I am assuming that this EP by the UK deathrash act is a stop-gap before an impending full length which I am certainly looking forward to hearing, if one is in the pipeline. I absolutely loved this bands last album ‘Morbid Prophecy’ an album saturated in battering brutality but infected with a groove you don’t often hear in this subgenre.

The EP release has seven tunes as the title track opens and is set to be unique to this EP and features a guest performance by Hellripper. A blistering assault the song typifies the incendiary causticity The Bleeding has in their songs. The frenetic obliteration is intense and ferocious guaranteeing you are saturated in a corrosive malice that seeps into your bones and dissolves them from within. ‘Hammer Of Penance 2021’ is a rerecorded tune from the bands last album, its slicing riff lacerates with clinical savagery and sees the song possess a slightly more acerbic quality to my ears.

The raw edition 2021, as the band calls it, of ‘Morbid Prophecy, is indeed a much more raw affair, but no less intense as the songs cold stark brutality is in some ways better than the album version. It depends on what you prefer production wise as I have always liked songs that have a primal unfettered rawness and that is what you get here as ‘Sadistic Saviour’ is also a remix but as a demo style. The sound is harsher, more piercing to some degree as again it showcases a song and style brimming with primeval violence. The cool riff break really catches your ear as it hacks and slashes into the song with murderousness.

Added to this EP are three live tunes, with the studio versions originally appearing on the band’s debut album ‘Rites Of Absolution’, that captures the intensity and mordacity of the band and begins with ‘Crook And Flail’. The bands savaging intent is there for all to hear as the coarseness is balanced by the sheer clinical vitriol exuding that continues into ‘Dreams Of Hatred’. There is little in the way of backing audience noise here with only brief snippets to actually indicate that the songs are live but you cannot deny the unencumbered viciousness of the live songs here. Announcing ‘Death Eternal’ this song closes this excellent EP with its surgical riffing and more deathly outpouring enhanced by some wholly nasty vocals that drip malevolence and spit venom.

A fine EP from UK’s The Bleeding, offering plenty for fans of the band complete with a fantastic new track as the release typifies how an EP should be done, giving the fans something new but also deviating into something different too.

(8.5/10 Martin Harris)

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