Bleed

Artist: Angel Dust
Label: Century Media
Category: Music

Average customer rating:

Media: Audio CD
Number Of Discs: 1

UPC: 727701794327
EAN: 0727701794327
ASIN: B000021XSR

Release Date: 1999-10-12

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Metal

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Tracks:

Bleed
Black Rain
Never
Follow Me (Part 1)
Follow Me (Part 2)
Addicted To Serenity
Surrender?
Sanity
Liquid Angel
Memories
Temple Of The King
Nightmare

Similar Items:

Enlighten the Darkness
Of Human Bondage
Border of Reality
Mechanized Warfare
Casting the Stones

Customer Reviews:

A suprising discovery.......2006-04-26

A must own in the Power Metal genre. A 'desert island' album of towering magnitude. Musicality, originality and various emotions and themes all drilled into one album without the 'wankerism' of other progressive power metal groups focused solely on instrumentation. This album picks you up, throws you down and scoops you back up again leaving you breathless.

1. Bleed **** Gritty electric guitar power chord progression over an ostinato keyboard line rips into a moderately difficult solo. Vocals are desperate, fitting the hopelessly dark lyrics.

2. Black Rain *** Repetitive speedy guitar riff. Song continues to be quite repetitive, although has nice keyboard/guitar solos.

3. Never **** Wicked gritty intro riff. Song steps down into lighter and slower interludes then back into the heavy sections to build up your anticipation. Some great keyboard work here.

4. Follow Me (Part I) ***** A welcome change of pace from the first three tracks. A lighthearted pleading song intended for a lover. An ostinato guitar riff with acoustic lead. Incredible hope extoled in this ballad. "Why don't you follow me?"

5. Follow Me (Part II) ***** Uses the theme from the previous track, but changes the tone. Instead of possibilities it speaks of lost hope. Song begins with an extremely unique spanish guitar riff over dark bass line. Builds up as heavy guitar and drums lead into the lyrics that give the feeling of anger and resentment. "Cause you didn't follow me!"

6. Addicted to Serenity *** Don't let the title confuse you, this is a speedy thrashy metal track that maintains the same intensity throughout with a speedy yet not overly technical solo.

7. Surrender *** A 7 minute epic but I couldn't completely get into this track - the lyrics are too screamy, although it has some nice changes, the instrumentation is quite simple with the exception of decent solo.

8. Sanity **** Song has a nice intro, almost a Type O Negative and Rammstein feel. The gritty guitar line and vocals move at a food stomping pace that allows one to really get into the song. Has some great guitar fills. An extremely melodic chorus.

9. Liquid Angel *** A Sonata Arctica feel to the song. Has a nostalgic feel with a slow piano line building up and falling down, building up and falling down.

10. Memories **** Continues the emotions from the previous track with a heavy distorted guitar then breaks into shred city, maintaining a strong intensity until the end of the track.

11. Nightmare ***** - With this track, Bleed ends in a BANG. With a phased bass line and pinch harmonicized heavy guitar line lead by lyrics with great intensity. As the song builds into the chorus, this song goes through a number of build-ups. The chorus of this song typifies this album.

"I'm just your only nightmare, etched in your mind, I'm just your ownly nightmare, and I'll be back - night after night."

Angellic!.......2005-08-08

Angel Dust created a masterpiece with this one that still has playability even to this day for me. Fans of Evergrey should definitely have this one in their collection. Great band, great album, 'nuff said.

That makes me.........................BLEEEEEEEEEEED.......2004-10-29

This was the second cd of this excellent group that i purchased. I was completely blown away by the melodic rock these guys orchestrated. My dad actually introduced me to these guys and the whole progressive metal family. The song "Bleed" is a very powerful song. The vocals down to the piano is done with excellence. If you never heard these guys you should definately check them out. I would recommend starting off with this cd first. Listen to it a few times and it'll grow on you. All of their other cds are great as well. They are definately a group that belongs in anyone's metal collection. Put the disc in the player and crank it up!

Power metal that has POWER !.......2004-05-16

I own all Angel Dust albums except their first one Into the Dark Past, and I can easily say that Bleed is by far their best work. Actually I like all of their discs but I think they released their most essential records from the Border of Reality to the Enlighten the Darkness era. Bleed was their album in-between... and their best!

Bands like Angel Dust and Rage updated their older sound with some more modern elements (symphonic arrangements, inclusion of keys and piano, more detailed production, etc.) and became the much needed breath of fresh air in the Euro power metal scene. The keyboards on this album have absolutely taken the depth of Angel Dust's music to a higher level. The piano intro of the title track is pure genius and one of the most unorthodox power metal songs of any band. This was the song that hooked me to Angel Dust and prompted me to go out and buy all their back catalog. With each release going backwards I discovered the band's thrash metal roots had indeed never been abandoned completely. Actually the thrash metal ingredients are still present on Bleed but they're not very much in the forefront. The band has chosen to bury them a bit deep in the compositions but it's definitely there when you give it a good listen.

Dirk Thurisch's vocal delivery on this album was one of the greatest changes as far as Euro power vocalists were concerned. He has a medium vocal range but quite often goes out of his way to hit higher notes with a very aggressive delivery. It is this expressive style in his singing that makes Bleed so special. All the keyboard arrangements have brought a very sparse and cool vibe to the songs yet Dirk's fiery vocal lines along with the sharp guitar solos which are all centred around Frank Banx's subtle bass work are phenomenal.

Bleed is not only the best Angel Dust album, but one of my favourite outputs of the entire power metal genre. It is far from the happy-go power metal albums with singers screaming their hearts out or twin guitar work dancing around incessant double drums. Angel Dust was among the first German bands to destroy this stale songwriting concept in power metal and actually aimed at creating heavy metal songs with a lot of power.

There is a great deal of variety on this disc going from the melodic song "Never" to the "Follow Me" parts 1 and 2 both of which offer different sides of the band. One of them is a slow and emotional ballad while the other employs the band's older thrash roots without getting overly loud. "Addicted to Serenity" and "Surrender?" are both insanely catchy with a nice chorus which you can sing along to although they both contain solid lyrical work. My copy of this CD is the regular edition with 9 tracks so "Liquid Angel", their ballad, closes the album. I noticed this copy contains the band's Rainbow cover "Temple of the King" which is also available on the amazing Dio tribute album Holy Dio. I think this is one of the best Rainbow covers I've heard. (The whole tribute album is very much recommended as well.)

If you don't own any Angel Dust discs, start with Bleed. Get Border of Reality and Enlighten the Darkness next. Most people I've met consider ETD their best work but I tend to disagree with that, still you can't go wrong with any Angel Dust disc. The only one I don't like as much as the rest is perhaps The Human Bondage.

A solid predecessor to "Enlighten the Darkness".......2002-12-30

Angel Dust is a power metal band with a slight thrash influence, which is probably due to the fact that they were originally a thrash metal band in the 80's. They resurfaced in 1998 with "Border of Reality" featuring a keyboard-soaked power metal sound with a mid-range gruff vocalist. 1999's "Bleed" built upon that sound. The album starts off with a flurry of piano-infected power metal anthems before taking a suprising turn into atmospheric techno soundscapes during the second half. Angel Dust would improve dramatically with the awesome 2000 concept masterpiece "Enlighten the Darkness", an essential purchase for all lovers of metal. Sadly, they would follow that up with the dreadful boredom of "Of Human Bondage", a record so bad that it made this great band split up.

The song "Bleed" starts off with an amazing piano part courtesy of Stephen Banx. It's incredibly beautiful and powerful. This is one of the most memorable piano parts in all of metal. Heavy guitar crashes down and rumbles along with the piano. "Bleed" may be the definitive Angel Dust song. It's brutally heavy yet beautiful and lush. It's epic, it's soaring, it's emotional. This is the perfect metal song. Dirk Thurisch really soars on the amazing chorus, "Can I leave and close my eyes for one more night? Can I pay to be set free of all this pain that makes me bleed?"

"Black Rain" starts off with promise but succumbs to the "let's shout 'black' repeatedly to sound dark and evil" symdrome. It may not bother many listeners, but I just get irked by repititious gang shouting of metal cliches like BLACK! BLACK! BLACK!

"Never" is another highlight of the album. A churning and grinding guitar coupled with liquid keyboard runs. The chorus is very beautiful. The end of the song features some extremely cool screaming by Dirk Thurisch along with searching harmony guitars.

"Follow Me" is an epic broken down into 2 tracks. The first part is very soft and acoustic. Dirk Thurisch puts in a memorable performance. "Do you remember a walk along the river? In the valley of our dreams?" This is very emotional and sad. The acoustic guitar and piano make this song exceeding gentle and beautiful. The last verse is much more powerful with its soaring vocals.

Part 2 of "Follow Me" is much heavier. It features the same melodic statements only elaborated upon with incredible heaviness. The lyrics to this part are very hateful and angry. This is perhaps the heaviest and darkest song I have ever heard Angel Dust do. It features some nice thrashy riffs and double bass drumming. The 2 part "Follow Me" is a stunning composition.

"Addicted To Serenity" features an addictive chorus and some fast riffing by Bernd Aufermann. The sparse piano and lush synth landscapes really add to this super-melodic song.

"Surrender" is over 7 minutes long and could probably be a couple minutes shorter as the mid-section goes a bit off track and is ultimately boring. The ending of the song is awesome, however, with Dirk's emotional screaming in the final chorus.

"Sanity" is a mid-pace journey into techno soundscapes. After starting off rather unimpressively, the song builds to a rather enjoyable tune. The second verse is really cool and the chorus is great as well. This is a suprising song that ends up succeeding. A fusion of techno and metal.

"Liquid Angel" is a very soft, slow ballad making use of sparse arrangements of piano and some acoustic guitar noodling. This is a very chilled song and a great way to end the album.

But wait, there are bonus tracks!!

"Memories" is a phenomenal happy power metal song! THE CHORUS! THE CHORUS! THE CHORUS!

Their cover of Rainbow's "Temple of the King" is suprisingly excellent. Great interpretation.

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