Bleed The Dream – Built By Blood

No matter what happens with this CD, it will always be talked about in the future due to the circumstances around the band and its release. When talking about this album, fans, critics and casual listeners will always bring up the subject of Scott Gottlieb, Bleed The Dream‘s drummer who passed away April 10th, 2005 (15 days before the release of Built By Blood). The drummer, who had been fighting cancer since May 8, 2004 and was waiting for a bone marrow transplant, dragged himself out of his hospital bed and, amongst pain and suffering, recorded the entire drum tracks for Built By Blood in three days before returning to the hospital. This fact will always overshadow the rest of the album; which is a shame because Built By Blood isn’t half bad.

The first things fans of Bleed The Dream will notice is the slightly re-worked songs from their acoustic EP Asleep – Should Have Known and Broken Wings. The band has taken them and made them harder, no longer only acoustic, and they sound quite good. And although the album isn’t half bad, it’s nothing incredibly original either. Imagine a slightly watered down version of bands like Underoath and then you will be able to image Bleed The Dream. That’s not saying its bad or anything, it just not all that outstanding. Songs like Should Have Known, Say G’Night and Black Sky’s have just the right amount of melodic emo singing vocals laced with the occasional scream that will easily make them into instant hits. They also have other harder songs like Taste The Change and Legends Die which will make the screamo fan cream their pants.

But for every good song on this album, you could easily find that same song on many other albums out there. At times, it is missing that certain punch to lift them over the bar in the ever competitive filled of emo music. Bleed The Dream‘s mass appeal, and the circumstances around the release, will make sure that the band does well and survives for a full year off touring off this album – but that doesn’t necessarily mean they are amazing. It is a solid album with some great ideas executed quite well, but at times it is lacking and a bit too generic to really last past the emo phase that is sweeping the nation.