At Peace with My Madness

There is a perception that Ripping Corpse had a unique death metal sound. In reality, they led a bigger New Jersey death metal scene which was packed with bands that resembled them. I am talking about bands like Human Remains, Damonacy, Mass Psychosis and Latshaw. None of these bands were clones of one another, but all played a similar kind of streetwise, contorted, chugging, violent and urban-ish death metal with belched vocals. It sounded awesome, and we should add Bleed to the list of early nineties New Jersey bands playing this style.

Bleed only made one demo, "At Peace With My Madness", and there is little information about them anywhere. The genericness of their moniker is a further hindrance to any posthumous research. Anyway, this demo is great and it sounds like a rawer, dirtier and more abrasive version of Ripping Corpse (sometimes pushing closer to Damonacy and early Human Remains). The band are looser and less structured than those bands, breaking into off-time slow sections (e.g., the beginning of "The Ulceration") or wilder fast sections (such as the second half of “We Are Alone”). This is an unorthodox way of playing an already unorthodox style of death metal, linking to the 'mathcore' sound that emerged in the region soon after (via punk/hardcore bands like Rorschach and Deadguy).

The production is fine. It sounds earthy and organic, and it captures the band’s complexity. It might be a little muddy in comparison to the crispness of the final Ripping Corpse demo or Latshaw's "Pain Immaculate" demo (both of which had optimum productions for this kind of music). You can hear enough of everything though. The relative intelligibility of the vocals also reveals the ludicrousness of some of the lyrics. The chorus of "Children Chops" is one of the silliest I have heard in death metal (facing stiff competition, no doubt). There is also the bizarre finale of the title track which references Dr Zuess and Charlie Brown, for no apparent reason.

Sure, Bleed was as good as Ripping Corpse. There are some (relative) limitations here compared to the originators. Take the drumming for instance, it is good but it isn’t at Brandon Thomas's level. Similar comments could be made about the guitar playing, there are loads of cool riffs and some wild solos but it isn’t on par with Shaune Kelley. This is not a major criticism because few American death metal bands could match Ripping Corpse in their prime (i.e., on their final demo). The takeaway message is that Bleed made a notable New Jersey death metal recording which is essential listening for fans of the style.