THE BLED ARE BREAKING UP
This sucks. Not just because I really like The Bled and I’m sad they won’t be making new music anymore, but because The Bled were one of THOSE bands. One of those bands that took risks outside of what their initial scene found acceptable, and as such one of those bands that ended up not fitting in anywhere. Too heavy/legit for the Christcore scene, too weird for the haircut band scene, not really metalcore, not really deathcore, not heavy enough for the brutal metal tours but too heavy for the pop/alt metal tours… not able to be put into any one specific box. And while it’s cool to say you’re doing something so unique it can’t be classified, for many bands at The Bled’s level that aren’t big enough to strike out on their own on a consistent basis (Tool, Muse, Dredg, Thrice, etc), that ultimately meant their undoing.
That’s my theory, anyway. According to AbsolutePunk.net (and MS reader “theskunkcatcher”) the band posted the following message on their Facebook page, without really giving any reasons for the breakup other than “we want to do other things with our lives”:
The Bled are streaming their entire new album Heat Fetish on 
A press release that arrived at the MS Mansion yesterday afternoon delivered some upsetting news: Tucson, AZ-based post-rock/metallers The Bled have signed with uber-scene label Rise Records. If you’re not familiar with Rise, all you’re really missing is some pure LOLz: their roster of current and alumni artists includes such fabulous bands as: Attack Attack!, Breathe Carolina, The Devil Wears Prada, Dance Gavin Dance, and a whole slew of other bands who routinely plan breaks into their live sets so they can go backstage and use their hair-flattening irons.
For better or for worse, oftentimes bands abruptly change directions after releasing one or several albums, prompting fans that have been with the band from the very beginning to ask “What the fuck?” Thrice is such a band. After their 2002 breakthrough The Illusion of Safety Thrice released The Artist in the Ambulance in 2003, a more polished and cohesive piece that was the next logical step in the band’s development. But what followed was a complete about-face that left many of the band’s original fans feeling betrayed — 2005′s Vheissu was a sprawling, experimental album that explored many different styles and textures, of which the band’s original post-hardcore / proto-emo sound was only a small part (The Alchemy Index, of which Vol I & II were released this October, follow in that direction). Enter Tucson, Arizona’s The Bled, who appear to have taken the melodic post-hardcore torch from Thrice, creating an album in Silent Treatment that could well stand in as a heavier modern day Thrice release — had that band not gone off the creative deep end.
