No matter how well this album does (and it will probably do very well), it will be overshadowed by the events surrounding its release. On Sunday, April 10, 2005, the band’s drummer Scott Gottlieb lost his battle with cancer. He had been fighting it for a year and was awaiting a bone marrow transplant. Sadly, out of nowhere, it attacked his lungs and then the rest of the organs in his body. Despite what must have been horrific pain, Scott, on his deathbed, managed to record the whole of this album and appear in the band’s first video. That achievement alone will get the band a lot of sympathy, and in turn a lot of press.
It will perhaps overshadow the album, which would be a shame because this isn’t half-bad, although in a very obvious and generic fashion. Imagine a more pop Underoath or Atreyu without the glam side. Songs like ‘Black Skies’ are hits-in-waiting and will surely make an impact later this year. The thing is, for every melodic ’emo’ song that’s here, there are a million other melodic ’emo’ songs – and by that I mean the likes of Taking Back Sunday, The Used and Atreyu – who have already covered every square inch this genre has left. It doesn’t matter that some of these songs are quite good – it’s all very familiar sounding.
I could carry on this review, but I’d probably only cover ground I’ve written about plenty of times before. ‘Broken Wings’ and ‘Legends Die’ are good, solid songs, but there’s a spark missing that sets the band apart from the big boys. Plenty of borrowed ideas are here, and many of them are well executed, but in a tired genre you need more than a tight rthymn section and a bellowing vocalist. Bleed The Dream will ultimately do very well I think because they have mass appeal, but that doesn’t make them a great band – instead they’re merely a good one in a sea of astounding mediocrity and blandness.
www.bleedthdream.com
Warcon
Paul