The song Judgement should be heard immediately.

After the 2009 debut-album "Souldrinker", Markus Pohl (Mystic Prophecy), Steffen Theurer (ex-Symphorce) and  shouters Chris Rodens and Alex Gindu have prepared more than interesting stuff  together with producer Eike Freese. Alex Gindu says following about the whole writing- and recording-process of the new album "Kingdom": "Eike gave us the confidence to go beyond what we had done before, this time really unleashing the blood-red beast". 

But this album  has brilliant moments beyond the fact that the songs are brutally Thrash, Death and Hardcore oriented for the happiness of Lamb Of God fans. The band calls it Blood Metal. But I mean, it's not only an aggressive thing because  Watch Me Bleed can add in background to  their music dark melancholic feelings  that can even remind sometimes of Before The Dawn. Proof of this is the song number 10 . The song in question is Judgement and this track should be heard immediately: It should be the first thing to do when you have the CD in your hands, and then, and only then, after you have repeated many times the listening of Judgement, you can begin to enjoy the work from the intro to the wonderful, cosmic, sorrowful (to say the least) outro Will you stand with me. Well, Judgement is not only a strong blast but also music of superior quality.

The whole album "Kingdom" is  heavy and raw, aggressive, ravenous, pounding and so are the lyrics: full of rage and dark imagination: a fist in your teeth from fearless warriors and "Vulcan`s son".  World Stops Moving is already a major violent shoot of death metal mixed with hardcore. In spite of all this brutality,  the ability in composition is great and able to master  many harmonic and melodic  passages too, as mentioned before indeed. The titletrack song Kingdom might be the anthem of all the most louder and aggressive qualities of this album, but soon songs like Judgement or From Down Below will be discovered by the metalheads as outstanding marks of a band which is no cut`n copy of Lamb Of God or Pantera but, on the contrary, has feelings and rage of its own imprinting to express with immense force. Track number 8 Death And Pain has such a rocking feeling behind the iron armour and guitars are so varied and sprouding while the interlude A question of honor (which opens for judgement) has such a magic touch. Or the even more sorrowful piano of Blackest of black Interlude which opens for Kingdom creating a big contrast while a beautiful lead guitar solos can be heard in many tracks as for example in War Calls Us. Guitar  are often able to crystal clear chords, chords which add to the first part of  From Down Below exciting spellscrafts. Another remarkable characteristic of this album  is not only the varied vocals in which whispers growls and grunts reign, but the fat, precise, powerful drumming by Steffen Theurer. Drums are protagonist of another "in-your-face"- song marked also by  temperament, cool vocals and an  intelligent death-metal based composition: this song is  Back The Slide in whose lyrics surfaces also the name of the band, Watch Me Bleed.

All in all the album is in constant growth: From the grand almost epic intro The rising tide  to the outro, we make  a step further to a relentless pleasure, in particular  in the second part of the album, exactly there where feelings of sadness too play a meanigful role, still  crowned however by that  great final explosion based on a fat Rock`n Roll structure called Let Them Try. The only song  that i would throw away is Here Come The Red: interesting horrorific lyrics unfortunately supported by no particularly inspired music. Inspite of the sparkling solo and the great drumming work i find this song soulless and very repetitive. For example, just to make a comparison War Calls Us is a bit repetitive as well, but  is much more interesting and enriched by lively guitars. 

Chris Rodens says: “We're not trying to break new frontiers...we just want to break people's necks!!!”. So, dont say now that  you have not been WARNED!!  May comes soon and Watch Me Bleed will make spring hotter!

Post scriptum for my Swiss readers: on May 4th Watch Me Bleed will start the tour in Switzerland at Rockcity in Uster. Be there.

Suggestions: The rising tide - Blackest of the black (interlude) - Back The Slide - A question of honor (interlude) - Kingdom - Death And Pain - Judgement - Sons Of Fenris - From Down Below - Will you stand with me (outro)

8,9/10
17.04.2012

written by  dalia di giacomo    www.facebook.com/dalia.digiacomo