Review Summary: Bleak strip away their sludge influence for a more chaotic offering.
Bleak have basically streamlined their approach on
No Light, No Tunnel, reducing the sludge influence that slowed them down on their previous LP and focusing instead on the chaotic aspect of their style. Not that they have completely stripped away their sludgy roots, as the production tone is perhaps even denser than before, but rather they have stopped it from ever becoming the focus and dictating whole songs as it did on
We Deserve Our Failures. The main result of this is that
No Light, No Tunnel seemingly flies by in comparison to its predecessor (even though they essentially have the same runtime) in a flurry of thunderingly heavy mathcore diatribes.
Although it’s not as if the Syracuse based 4-piece have forgotten how to slow things down for atmospheric affect, it’s just that now these moments are shorter and act more as mosh inducing beat-downs rather than monolithic time wasters. This benefits their new style greatly as it allows them to bounce off of their more spastic moments without sacrificing momentum, keeping things moving at an aggressively lumbering pace. The return of original vocalist Mike Watson also fits their new approach nicely, as his ugly, emotionally strained snarl mirrors the grating dissonance that is more common here. However his style is somewhat repetitive and lacks the thick pervasiveness that the vocals on “We Deserve Our Failures” had, even if he does shine in certain moments such as the animalistic roar that kick-starts “Roses”’s spasmodic opening.
The increased use of dissonance is perhaps the most welcome change, as the denseness of Bleak’s sound is emphasised by the sharp tone they cut through it with. “No Time” is an exceptional example of this as the relentless guillotine-like bursts of squealing guitar create a particularly intense feeling that’s further exemplified by Watson’s screams of “we’re out of time”. Moments such as this where it’s possible to actually decipher what Watson is screaming about are few and far between, but when they do come around they’re certainly memorable, such as the final roars of “fuck your god” that close the album out nicely. Not that it matters whether we can understand what the lyrics are at the end of the day, hardcore being a genre that’s always lent itself more towards value through the general feeling rather than concrete meanings. And to be honest I’m not even sure if I want to know what
No Light, No Tunnel is about, seeming as the general feeling it gives off is one of misanthropy, which it does pretty well all things considered.
