Review by Saxy S for Bleed From Within - Shrine (2022)

Another 2010s metalcore band that I have no remembrance of during my metal purge of the decade, and another who started out as deathcore before transitioning to a lighter shade of hardcore. Bands like Wage War and Make Them Suffer are near the bottom of the barrel in this regard and left me with a poor first impression entering Shrine. But what I was given was actually a really solid piece of 2nd wave melocore. This album is groovy; it has some really good riffs, the percussion is decent and not overwhelming in the overall mix, and while the vocals can be hit-or-miss, I really enjoyed the harsh vocal delivery of Scott Kennedy. Songwriting is closer to groove metal/melodic death metal most of the time, but Shrine employs breakdowns in a classic 1st wave melocore fashion; where the breakdown is a key component to the song and in most cases, is the foundation behind either the main chorus or a bridge. Texture wise, as mentioned before, the groove/melodic death metal palette means that Bleed From Within sound closer to a band like Orbit Culture as opposed to The Devil Wears Prada. But without the inclusion of those migraine inducing Inception sound effects as Orbit Culture did on Descent, that makes Shrine the superior album by a long shot!

After a while, the album does get rather tedious and starts to become more bland as Bleed From Within start to run out of unique ideas for this particular brand of melocore. But I do really enjoy the intensity of the album; a decent balance of aggression and melodic presence, which is seldom seen in mainstream metalcore these days...even more so if the band is one of those "deathcore turned metalcore" bands like Bleed From Within have become. So I do like this. It won't be a mainstay in my listening rotation, but I'll keep it around as a heavier change of pace, while also being a solid melodically driven record.

Best Songs: Sovereign, Flesh and Stone, Stand Down, I Am Damnation