MetalSucks

The Bled are streaming their entire new album Heat Fetish on their MySpace page and it’s everything I’d hoped it would be. Most importantly it’s fucking heavy, by far the heaviest thing this band has ever done. It’s a lot of other things as well, but you’ll have to check it out for yourself to find out.

This record’s got equal heaping of early Thrice and modern Dillinger Escape Plan, and because The Bled are above just ripping off their heroes there’s plenty of their own flavor on The Heat too. I’m especially digging the tracks that we’re just now hearing for the first time. “Need New Conspirators” and “Shouting Fire in a Crowded Room” are rocking my speakers at the moment, but nearly every song so far’s got something to offer. I can’t wait to get my hands on this record and really learn it. Definitely one of my favorite records so far released in this young year of 2010.

-VN

There are some bands that certain people will never give the time of day solely because of pre-conceived notions. The Bled are one of those bands. But I’m not going to stop trying to get metalheads to pay attention to them…. because they’re a band you really need to pay attention to.

In January The Bled posted two new songs that I proclaimed the heaviest songs the band had ever written. One of those songs, “Smoke Breaks” (the heavier of the two), is still posted, while “Moutheater” has been replaced by another new song, “Crowbait.” It’s not as heavy (or in my opinion as good) as the other two, especially the fireball that is “Smoke Breaks,” but it’s still a decent song.

Heat Fetish drops March 2nd.

-VN

Thanks: Ian Wilomot

Back in August I lamented the fact that The Bled signed with haircut-core label Rise Records, home to such “artists” as Attack Attack!, Breathe Carolina, Dance Gavin Dance a whole slew of other bands sure to make you cringe. The move didn’t make sense for a band like The Bled with hardcore roots and actual real, live aggression… a band that’s actually, ya know, good.

But now the band has released the first two songs from their forthcoming record Heat Fetish (out March 2nd) and they’ve completely made me eat my words. The two new songs, “Smoke Breaks” and “Moutheater” — both now streaming on The Bled’s MySpace page — are easily the two heaviest songs the band has ever written. And we’re not just talking in relative terms here… these two songs are heavy as fuck compared to anything by any band. We’re talking Converge and Dillinger territory here. Seriously. If you’ve never listened to The Bled because you thought they were part of a certain scene, now is the time to throw all of your preconceptions out the window and give them a shot.

Heat Fetish is suddenly one of my most anticipated record of 2010. With two tracks like these new ones, how can it not be?

-VN

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.

Why such a good band like The Bled (whose most recent album Silent Treatment I wrote about favorably back in ‘07) would sign with a label so utterly full of suck is baffling. The Bled — whose sound I’d describe as 1 part At the Drive In, 1 part early Thrice — have issued an explanation via their MySpace blog, so we’ve assigned a team of MetalSucks Mansion Monkeys eager for their morning banana fix to the task of cutting through the crap and translating the band’s statement into something a bit more… honest. The translation, in bold, after the jump:

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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.

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