Originally written by Chris Redar
Internal Bleeding wasted no time in following up 2004’s Onward to Mecca, eh? Jeez, slow down, guys. No need to saturate the slam market, fellas- the kids might lose interest. All kidding aside, it’s probably in the best interest of the band to let that incredibly xenophobic trainwreck of an album fade away into a distant memory, only to be remembered by the fly-by-night mercenary crew that assembled to record it (the only original member that participated was drummer Bill Tolley).
Fast forward to 2014. We’ve got a new lineup, a new album, and a new approach to the band. That approach appears to be to take the old approach and use that, as opposed to the ‘write a shitty hardcore album’ one. How much you enjoy this approach is entirely dependent on two things—being a fan of the band previous to this, or being a fan of slam in general. It’s shocking how specific a genre this is given the mostly ‘get drunk and bump into things’ mantra most fans and bands hold. And being one of the forefathers of the genre, it’s no surprise that Internal Bleeding have elected to keep things slammy as fuck.
Every song has a point where the music stops entirely and what is essentially a new song begins. That second ‘song’ is generally the ‘slam’ portion following a more traditional death metal introduction. It’s a very simplistic approach to the genre. The problem with that is most bands have figured out in the past decade’s worth of time how to transition, giving Imperium a very dated sound. This could have easily followed Driven to Conquer around the turn of the millennium before Destroy the Opposition raised the bar on this kind of stuff.
Another thing these songs have in common is length. Specifically, they are all quite long—usually too long for their own good. “Patterns of Force- Act 1” tips the scales at nearly seven minutes, featuring nearly three minutes of the same slammy breakdown riff to close things out, and then fading into “Patterns of Force- Act II” with a bootleg version of the same damn riff. These songs seem to be going for second-wind impact, but rarely do they introduce a different element or even a different riff. Oftentimes, they don’t even raise the speed above HxC ‘open this pit up’ levels.
When the band does kick it up a notch and mix things up just a bit, the results are generally fun and sometimes fantastic. “(In the) Absence of Soul” has the most varied work behind the kit presented, and it brings back to life an album that has worn its welcome at that point (it’s the penultimate track). Several non-slam riffs seep into the usual straight-line approach towards the finale of “Castigo Corpus Meum”. It makes a good deal of what came before it seems much more disappointing in hindsight. Why the band didn’t approach the entire album in the same manner as these two bangers is a question best left unanswered (I’ll give you a hint: SLAM GOOD, LIKE SLAM. HIT PEOPLE, SMASH).
So, Internal Bleeding fans, go ahead. This will not disappoint you. Slam fans, also, go right ahead. These are your riffs and breakdowns, and you deserve to be happy. As for everyone else, it’s not the worst thing out there currently, though it’s pretty far from the best. Just keep those expectations a little lower than usual and you’ll be fine.
