Bleeding Through - Dust to Ashes (2001)^{Release ID: 8770}

Let's think of a few metal and hardcore genres this way... Metalcore is the child of two genre parents, heavy metal and hardcore punk. 1996 was its possible birth year when Converge took intense hardcore fury to a different metal level. Mathcore was born in 1999 when Botch and The Dillinger Escape Plan took the hardcore realm by a storm of technical proficiency. Zao helped give metalcore a dark atmospheric side to balance it out with the Christian lightness. Then hardcore punk divorced from heavy metal for being too melodic and married heavy metal's more extreme sibling death metal and gave birth to deathcore in 2002, the year Suicide Silence was formed, destined for an a-bombed malice. And in 2008, metalcore started having an electronic phase with the attack of Attack Attack! There are a couple metalcore bands that might have influenced the divorce; Killswitch Engage whose melodic metalcore is watered down to radio-friendliness, and the brutal death metal influences of Bleeding Through! A little over-simplified as this point, the first couple albums from those two bands are what caused the metalcore scene to be split into two sides by the late 2000s, the melodic side impersonating Killswitch Engage and the brutal side copying Bleeding Through. Fortunately, Bleeding Through would be nicely balanced on both sides since the late 2000s.

Bleeding Through's debut Dust to Ashes shows their brutal side really greatly, being their most raw release by the band in both sound and production. It's a little startling to hear the jump in production in the second album, especially in that album's re-recordings of songs from this debut. Here, the vocals are obscured and a little distorted, the drums are flat, and the keyboards can barely be heard, just humming in the background. The guitars sound primarily clearer and nicely easier to hear, despite the low drop-B tuning. The sound is really interesting! The riffs show the band's stylistic blend of melodic death metal and straight-edge hardcore, influenced by At the Gates, In Flames at that time, and even Cannibal Corpse. The tremolos are also reminiscent of melodic death metal mixed with vile black metal. However, those riffs strike differently from the more traditional approach. While there are blast beats, the occasional pummeling breakdown really powers up a brutal riff, and all those breakdowns really connect well with the riffs, giving the songs more coherent fluid. And whenever the breakdown has appropriately killer rhythm, you know there's gonna be sh*t kicked in the pit.

The opening track "Turns Cold to the Touch" works well a great start to this band's discography, beginning with a sound sample of a choir singing and narration, before blasting into death metal-influenced metalcore chaos. While showing some heavy metalcore that would inspire As I Lay Dying, the soft bridge, in which vocalist Brandan Schieppati singing clean vocals for the first time while having his harsh vocals, has the despair of Katatonia at that time. "Hemlock Society" has some better extreme action. "Just Another Pretty Face" is just another heavy song that would be re-recorded in their next album along with the aforementioned "Turns Cold to the Touch". The next one, "Shadow Walker" is one of the greatest and most chaotic songs in the album. Short but killer! However, there is an alternate version at the end of this album that really ruins the song, but we'll get to that later.

"III Part 2" was also re-recorded in their next album Portrait of the Goddess. In case you're wondering, the "first part" is actually "Aurora III" in their demo. "Reflection" keeps up the wicked chaos. Sometimes the band would miss the memo of melodic direction and get lost in "I Dream of July". After a standard harmonic guitar intro, it gets discarded in space for hardcore/death metal riffs, then ending with a breakdown that is more forgettable than exciting.

The band also has trouble choosing an idea to develop in "Oedipus Complex". After a thrashy trio of riffs, they switch to a section with Nile-like keyboards. Both of those sections are each strong on their own and shouldn't be too close to each other. After yet another sound sample with narration, "Lay on the Train Tracks" brings back some riff-rage with more coherence. The last actual track "Thrones of Agony" is an epic extreme song, starting with a soft acoustic keyboard intro before returning to heaviness with occasional melodic harmonies. I said that's the last actual track, because of a horrendous hidden track; the "alternate version" of "Shadow Walker", where Brandan Schieppati adds his own improvised singing/shouting that sounds like one of Jim Carrey's meltdowns in Liar Liar. Way to ruin an awesome song! F*** THAT SH*T!!

Even with that hilariously awful hidden track and a few flaws in composition and production, it shows the band's passion for the sound they're willing to make, a lot more than you would expect. Not every band is passionate to make raw metalcore from the very start when they're all drowning in rip-off variations nowadays, but this album has what's real with no confusion. However, with the poor quality compared to later releases and half of its songs re-recorded in a couple albums, Dust to Ashes is a little more of a demo than an actual studio album and I would recommend it more to fans of the band's historical perspective. Still a good debut where listening is encouraged....

Favorites: "Turns Cold to the Touch", "Hemlock Society", "Shadow Walker", "Reflection", "Thrones of Agony"