Divine Heresy's debut album, 'Bleed the Fifth,' is a peerless display of brutal metal.In the first minute of the first song, which so happens to be the title track, you'll meet an explosion; brutal drum work; Tommy Vext's deep, screaming vocals; and bad-ass guitar riffs. Now let me warn you: the whole CD is like this.
I have to give props to the drummer Tim Yeung first. Throughout the album, you'll hear his double bass pedals unrelentingly pounding your ears and, I'll be honest, it is fucking awesome.
'Bleed the Fifth' and 'Failed Creation,' the first single of the debut, are the highlights of the album. 'Bleed the Fifth' is composed of Vext belting out lyrics via screams and such, but in the second track, Vext changes it up and actually sings the chorus. Granted, there are still plenty of screams, and the drumwork (namely the double bass pedals) are everywhere, the portions of the song that are actually sung are far from out of place.
If you do what I did and listen to the disc from start to finish, you'll notice that after 'Failed Creation,' the intensity of the album flatlines a little. It's still good, but it peaked with the first two tracks. It isn't until I reached 'Rise of the Scorned' that I was jolted back to attention. Starting with a unique 40-second acoustic intro, the song becomes a full-on assault. Vext belts an incredible scream and it's then I realize I found a sequel, of sorts, to the title track: the song is insane with its intensity. An almost never-ending (and by now assumed) double bass attack yields to an unusually calm (and quick) interlude at the 2-minute mark. Immediately following, a similar change-up a la 'Failed Creation': melodic singing that Vext nails right on the head.
The album repeats itself with a flatline following 'Rise of the Scorned,' but the aforementioned line is much higher and shorter than the first. The finale, 'Closure,' distances itself from the rest of the CD by nearly containing no screaming, no growling, nothing really metal whatsoever. For the majority of the song, it's all clean, beautifully sung vocals, a much simpler drum track and traditional guitar work. But of course, it's awesome. The song is the perfect way to end a CD as bad-ass as this.
All in all, Divine Heresy's debut is killer and a must for anyone who listens to metal. It's unfortunate that the band had to fire Vext, due to an incident in NY one year ago, but the band has put its fate in the hands of Travis Neal, their new vocalist. It won't be long, though, till we see how the new partnership is going: Divine Heresy is expecting to put out their sophomore album, tentatively titled 'Bringer of Plagues,' sometime this summer.
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