S.I.N.

Could Love Lies Bleeding be considered veterans of the black metal industry despite their isolation from the main bands who have led the genre into the 21st century by the throat? Rhetoric is always a good device to use no matter what you’re writing however, there are times when rhetoric can cause severe problems with the mind. For instance, this band, Love Lies Bleeding, are back with their second opus, ‘S.I.N’ and it provides more questions than answers in response to the ailing metal fan who wants to know precisely where and why this band are headed in the direction that they are. For all their positive traits, Love Lies Bleeding like to annoy and confuse when it comes to the direction of the band. This record presses on where the first left off, but considering it was just above average, bordering on good, one wonders why significant alterations weren’t made to make a heavy impact upon the listener and the music itself. Limbo is a place where many metal bands can often become entangled in and find it hard to escape from. ‘S.I.N’ isn’t terrible by any stretch of the imagination, it just lacks a significant spark and symbolises the French bands attempt to incorporate female vocals and keyboards as an easy way out of being truly innovative. French black metal is often regarded as a stand out scene, but this record doesn’t showcase why.

Whilst this style may have caught the attention on the first record, it can only go so far in its exploration of themes. This record, to me, symbolises the bands status in limbo, swirling around the sufficient number of acts who’re entwined in this capsule where bands struggle to get out of. An extreme move away from the previous sound results in cries of ‘sell-out’ and more of the same results in cries of frustration and perhaps anger. Love Lies Bleeding like to frustrate their audience with formulated drums, which don’t add much significance to the soundscapes unless the pace is slowed down from the usual fast tempo, which is sparsely the case throughout the songs. When songs like ‘Frygt Og Baeven’ are challenged to produce moments of melancholic bliss, they produce them when the songs are slowed down due to a higher increase in intensity from the keyboards, which take up a piano like sound and good use of symphonies. The problem is, this is rarely the case. Often, the slow coursing symphonic structures are blended together with unsubtle tremolo guitar riffs or double bass and it isn’t as impacting as it was previously. Songs like ‘Bringer Of Redemption’ signify Love Lies Bleeding’s move towards a traditional black metal style and a stereotypical French style, whereby the ‘raw’ sub-genre may take hold for sustained moments at a time. At least the production is well suited to the style, though it outshines the bass, which is lacking in substance anyway. Instead of being the shepherd, the bass acts as the sheep, following the guitars every move.

These moments of madness neglect the bass, deem the vocals redundant and unemployed and whilst there isn’t anything immediately wrong, the result is an endless wave of mediocrity that other black metal acts can produce in a better fashion, catering to the audiences needs better and much more communicative. The rasps, the rather inaudible bass and the symphonic structures seem out of place amongst the harsher elements, though there will be those who enjoy the inclusion of piano sections, which apparently spruce up the soundscapes and makes them sound more significant than they actually are. Whereas the first record seems decent enough in its approach, change was needed and it hasn’t come. Instead of exploring the style they had initially set down, the band has covered over the grey spots with florescent colours in a vain attempt to portray meaning when instead all that exists is the invisible. Lacking in depth, emotion and diversity, the inclusion of operatic female vocals (which are just melodic chants, no actual singing for long parts and when singing does come into play, the lyrics are as indecipherable as the rasps!) add no greatened sense of anything in particular apart from a giant cup of what the fuck is that doing there! Some of the songs are also too long. They need to be rewritten, restructured and scaled down to a manageable size whereby the accessibility level is actually existent, not hidden behind a brick shit house. Not as lively as the first, nor as good.