Bleeding Fiction EP, 2012

"The Norwegian band She Said Destroy is often described as a death metal band, a thrash metal band, and a black metal band, while sludge metal is sometimes also brought into the picture as a genre tag. Well their style on Bleeding Fiction is not quite death metal, not quite black metal, not quite thrash metal and not quite sludge metal. Still it is a bit of all those genres, and it's all out progressive.

First off, the EP contains only one song which is well nigh 27 minutes long. With that sort of song length, there should be plenty of room for a lot of interesting things. And She Said Destroy definitely take full advantage of this, making sure that there is both plenty of variation and plenty of repetition on the EP.

Thus, the listener is taken on a journey through a landscape of strangely groovy riffs, heavy and sludgy passages, and darkly mellow atmospheric sections, and this is sprinkled with bursts of synth effects, some of which are spacey while others are more mellow. We are not dealing with overly technical music, and a lot of the progressive nature of "Bleeding Fiction" lies in the combination of very different modes of expression – some parts are strangely lush while others are bleak as hell. The vocals are harsh all the way through, but are contrasted with the softer and more fragile passages that are inserted throughout the song.

The EP is quite enjoyable, but I must say that I wish the vocals would have been a bit more varied, and I think that a singing style with more tonality to it would have contributed more melodically to the overall sound. Still, as an expressive device, the harsh vocals definitely play a role in generating the dark atmosphere that, despite the many moods expressed, is ubiquitous throughout the 27 minutes long opus.

This EP should definitely appeal to fans of sludge metal and post-metal, and any other prog fan who is interested in the darker and heavier aspects of the world of prog might also want to give Bleeding Fiction a listen.

(review originally posted at seaoftranquility.org)"