“Finnis Fatalis Spei,” the opening of Bleeding Through’s latest, Declaration, is promising: it evokes a dark mood with a rich sense of melody and delightful faux-classical layering, complete with siren vocals by token hot girl/keyboard player Marta Peterson tastefully low in the mix. This all coheres into to morose buildup as the guitars predictably make their first appearance, climaxing with a tense final note, then a shitty-yet-effective sample to trigger the heaviness that will presumably follow. And because this is Bleeding Through, upon first listen, the cynic in you will be tempted to be immediately disappointed, to think that the first track – just under two minutes – will be the only thing remotely interesting about the album. Then the title track blasts in, with the grandiose intensity of decent symphonic black metal, almost taking a cue from Emperor’s Anthems to the Welkin at Dusk (arguably their most underrated effort) with tight, triggered drums, persistent guitars, and a subtle keyboard line like a mist around it all… then, twenty seconds in, the cynic in you is pleased, as a generic metalcore riff gets dropped in there like a dead kitten at a children’s birthday party, and you’re quickly reminded that this is Bleeding fucking Through, and that Bleeding fucking Through are still a generic metalcore band at heart. The rest of Declaration continues like this – flourishes of something interesting followed ever so dependably by Bleeding Through’s (and almost all post-Killswitch metalcore’s) hallmarks: generic breakdowns, reheated Swedish death riffs, forgettable vocals, and an overall air of crushing mediocrity. This is still Bleeding Through; shame on us for thinking that they’d make anything of themselves.

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When news of the new band Zero System surfaced — featuring two members of North Carolina’s Bloodjinn — I was naturally curious, as Bloodjinn’s This Machine Runs on Empty was one of my favorite records of 2007. So I went straight to the source, emailing their singer Joel Collins to get the scoop, and he agreed to answer some questions about the new band, the old one, and what its various members are up to on all fronts. The interview, after the jump.

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Just a little over a month ago, Bleeding Through lashed out at Trustkill Records for allegedly screwing them out of royalties; that conflicts seems to have been temporarily resolved, as Trustkill will release Bleeding Through’s new album, Declaration, September 30.

But now Throwdown vocalist Dave Peters is lashing out at Trustkill for nearly identical reasons (As an interesting side note, Bleeding Through front man Brandan Schieppati used to be a member of Throwdown). A guest column on Headbanger’s Blog reads in part:

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Hey, that rhymes!

So Bleeding Through have posted a new song, the clunkily titled “Orange County Blonde and Blue,” on their MySpace page. It comes from their new album, Declaration, which may or may not come out in September – I imagine it will come to down to whether or not the band clears up their beef with Trustkill.

When I listened to this song over the weekend, I thought it was much better than most of the stuff I’ve heard from this group in the past. Then again, it was produced by Devin Townsend and I was very, very, VERY drunk, so it had kind of a natural advantage over all past Bleeding Through songs.

And by the way, I’ve decided that from now on, if I have to post a graphic for Bleeding Through, it’s going to be a pic of Marta, preferably showing some cleavage (luckily, those kinds of pics aren’t hard to come by). I hope you all enjoy them.

-AR

We’ve heard lots of not so great things about the way Trustkill Records treat their artists, who have been jumping ship left and right as of late (see: Terror, Throwdown, etc.) – but we’ve never printed anything because no one was ever willing to go on record about it.

But now Bleeding Through have done a guest piece for Headbanger’s Blog in which they allege that Trustkill have basically joined the Tony Brummel club. Read the article in its entirety after the jump.

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Devin Townsend is producing the new Bleeding Through album, titled Declaration, so I’m already about ten times more curious to hear it than I was any previous Bleeding Through album.

Still, the description of it as a concept album about life as a touring musician leaves me kinda underwhelmed. Blabbermouth reports that front man Brandon Schiepatti has this to say about the album in May ’08 issue of Revolver [via Blabbermouth]:

“Every song will be named after a different city or state… There are definitely places when we’re traveling where every time we go there, we’re like, ‘Fuck, why do we have to be here?’ Like, we’ll be in France and all of a sudden we’ll feel totally insignificant. You get the feeling that people’s eyes are just burining a hole through you.”

Schiepatti concludes by promising the new album will be Bleeding Through’s heaviest yet. What a shock: metal musicians never make that promise.

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I hate Halloween. I mean, I guess I don’t mind it in theory, but here in NYC, there’s this huge parade every year that makes it virtually impossible to cross Sixth Avenue all night, which is a real bitch, ’cause I live on one side of Sixth but work on the other – so, sooner or later, I’m gonna hafta try and find a way across. Basically, my evening turns into the most irritating game of Frogger, like, ever.

ANYWAY, here’s ten metal videos that, for whatever reason, strike me as Halloween appropriate. Enjoy.

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The Innocent are a new sorta-but-not-really-supergroup featuring Bleeding Through’s Brandon Schieppati on vocals, Bad Religion’s Brooks Wackerman on drums, and some of the dudes no one cares about from The Distillers and No Use For A Name. They play neo-thrash with screamed verses and, sometimes, cleanly sung choruses. The bio on their MySpace page features the following statement:

“As grinding death metal reemerges, thrash metal makes an exciting comeback and the trendy also-rans of the last few years deservedly fall out of favor, it’s time for skillful fretwork, mature song-craft and breathtaking musicianship altogether to conquer to take its rightful place once again. It is time for The Innocent.”

That’s a joke, right? “Trendy also-rans of the last few years” – isn’t that Bleeding Through? And, other than not having a cute chick playing synths, WHAT THE FUCK IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THIS BAND AND BLEEDING THROUGH?

Trend-chasing cock suckers. I hate this band already.

-AR