Glaswegian groove/metalcore act Bleed from Within have their fifth album impending release. With a five-year gap between ‘Uprising’ and ‘Era’, their last couple of albums, it was worth the wait as BFW significantly stepped up their game. Luckily, there’s only been two years between ‘Era’ and ‘Fracture’, and we were treated to the first single from this album at the end of 2019. It seems on ‘Era’ they found a nice run of form with their songwriting abilities and chemistry – perhaps with the arrival and influence of Steven Jones (also of From Sorrow to Serenity), now on his sophomore BFW album. ‘Fracture’ doesn’t stray too much from the quality or tone of the last record. It’s a solid effort – so if you liked ‘Era’, you’ll probably enjoy this one too!
After a long silence, Anekdoten reemerges into the darkness with a record that is both more mature than their debut, Vemod, and yet somewhat less polished than 1995's Nucleus. From Within feels like it was produced on a tighter budget, and the production can have a rehearsal-room feel - although to be sitting in Anekdoten's rehearsal room is no small privilege. The opening title track is a band tour de force of crunching bass, swooping Mellotron, and clattering snare drums; one of the real high points of the album comes with the slowly building instrumental "The Sun Absolute," built around a single pulsing bass guitar note, ghostly Mellotron flutes, and sonar ping keyboards…