Deathcore, eh? What the hell is that all about then? Well, if you don't know, it's a mashup of death metal and metalcore. Obvious, yes. Oh, you don't know what metalcore is. Are you sure you want to be here? Well, metalcore mixes up hardcore punk, melodic death metal, and emo. So, yes, deathcore is loud, fast, aggressive and not at all fluffy on the ears. To be honest, you really only notice the difference vocally, with deathcore generally drawing from the death metal side of things.
It has an ardent following with bands like All Shall Perish and Job For A Cowboy gathering a fairly rabid following. And one of the latest looking to grab their share of teeny nutters are Lanarkshire outfit Bleed From Within. They put out their debut, "Humanity" a year or so back, and headed off on the obligatory toilet tour before sitting back down to record their new record. And it's pretty good. If you like That Sort Of Thing. Because, believe me when I tell you, this isn't for the faint of heart.
Vocalist Scott Kennedy howls and screams over an omnipresent backing of brutal, guttural, punch in the stomach metal. Although, it has to be said, this is a wee bit more mellow than their debut, so there will be a few extremonutters who will be muttering about "selling out, man". No more so than on tunes like 'The Healing' which displays a hitherto unforeseen melodicism. But there is still a welter of noise, no more so than on album highlight, 'Last Of Our Kind', which rips your spleen out, before dipping into some blissful clean guitar lines that will endear them to more traditional metal fans.
The rhythm section are in particuarly fine form, something that is absolutely essential with this style of music, with a big shout out to drummer, All Richardson, who puts on an excellent display of blast beats and mainstream drumology throughout. It's a step on the path to a wider audience, and hopefully their existing fanbase will be happy to be taken along for the ride.