After Paradigm In Entropy put them on the map, Orange County’s Bleed The Sky is back with their second album filled with brutal metalcore, Murder The Dance. Was their first album just some lucky shot or can we add them to the list with Lamb Of God, Killswitch Engage and other successful New Wave Of American Heavy Metal bands?

At first it seemed like they had definitely done a great job, but after a couple of spins these thoughts changed though. The production of Christian Olde Wolbers fits the music perfectly and most songs are brutal as fuck, but nowadays that isn’t enough. With mostly mid-tempo tracks, clean sung choruses and with comparable compositions they don’t distinguish themselves from other up-and-coming acts.

Live, most songs probably will do great and I can recommend this record to fans of the genre, but don’t expect anything world-shaking. For me, I’ll probably stay listening to tracks like ‘Bastion’, ‘Slavior’ or the Pantere-like ‘Poseidon’, but these 12 songs in total are just a bit too much.