Faithbomb - Bleed

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If you haven't heard of Faithbomb yet, you may fairly soon.  Their Ty Tabor-mastered debut album "The American Jesus" left a lot to be desired in my opinion...and in all honesty, I thought it sucked pretty bad.  "Bleed", however, exposes us to a much-improved Faithbomb.  This disc has life, energy, and power to it that the previous release didn't.  Using a dirty mix of metal and hardcore with lots of groove, Faithbomb has created an album that seems to improve with each listen.
 
Musically, this band never lets up in the heavy department.  This is eleven well-produced songs that rock hard, and even includes a cover of "Receive Him" by Vengeance Rising.  (The Sounds of the Dead Records release will have this cover song, but the re-release on New Renaissance Records will cut the track).  Vocally, they are understandable, yet rough, and remind me a little of Myk of Six Feet Deep.  The thing about the vocals are...they are well done, but it seems like I've heard them many times before.  They are nothing really all that special.  They do a few instances of clean vocals and also start off the song "Casting Lots" with an almost Dale Thompson vibe, but most of the songs contain the gruff vocal style that while intense, aren't very memorable.
 
The first half of the album is solid, but I think it picks up steam on the second half, with the climax being the "heavy as a ton of bricks" closer "Opiate for the Masses".  Lyrically, the band is very outspoken covering topics from faith, bigotry, to religion. 
 
There are a lot of bands out there that are better than Faithbomb.  I can see room for improvement in many places, but compared to where they started, they've really moved up the list.

Rating:

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