With The Nimrods' last album Chronicles of a Heretic Part 2:The New Age selling over 3 million copies, the Nimrods were wondering how to top it. "I figured we needed to go places we hadn't gone before, maybe even where no metal band had gone before." Says drummer Kit Saunders. The result is BLEED! The name of the album was due to the band members "Bleeding out our emotions and creativity into this album." Says bassist Davey Matlock. The songs are more complex using extremely unconventional song structures and songwriting techniques.The album is a blend of extremely progressive and extremely brutal with maybe 2 songs that aren't very heavy.

Track Listing:
Breaking the Righteous (14:13):
This song starts out with scary sounding church bells and a sample of wind blowing in the background.After about a minute of this Jimmy begins to play a small classical guitar piece under it, playing a few riffs over and over again.After two minutes of this the band begins playing in an instant.Lots of heavy chord progressions layered with simple guitar leads on top and Jimmy singing in what can only be described and the mix between an opera tenor and a nasty black metal shriek.This strange but fantastic vocal style carries on until the chorus of the song using plain operatic vocals.After a guitar solo the song goes into a section where the keyboardist Jack Burton plays a complex harpsichord piece with a few short heavy notes thrown in on guitar.The song then pulls up to full speed in a death metal section with lots of grooves with use of African percussion and woodblocks.Finally the song ends as it begins with bells,wind, and a classical guitar.

Incineration in Hades (18:15):
This is the longest song on the album and a band favorite.It begins with lots of black metal tremolo riffing and blast beats then leads into chunky thrash with what seems like jazz drumming but 100 times faster.It then turns to a technical short bass solo and then the band returns with what seems like a medieval style riff similar to their earlier progressive material.This carries on until Jimmy's vocals kick in with his signature pitch changing growl and a few screams.After the verse there is a technical clean part with lots of scary undertones due to a few sustained keyboard notes.After a nice clean solo which lasts a few minutes the band returns to a few symphony styled riffs and some orchestral percussion such as a timpani and orchestra cymbals.The vocals turn operatic with some screams to accent the emotion and finally the song ends with some slow heavy death metal with a lot of sustained growls.

Bleeding Soul (10:12):
This song is more melancholic with clean vocals that are very sad and small string arrangements in a few places.The bass is very dominant in the song because the guitar is playing simple chords so the bass accents.The drums are more versatile with polyrhythms and a few conga drums and bongos to give it a more exotic feel.The song ends with a distorted guitar solo over an acoustic part with no drums and more played down bass.The ending is a mix of jazz fusion and some progressive rock due to some keyboard chords being thrown in as well giving it a 70s vibe.It's probably the only song on the album that can be considered a ballad.

A Beautiful Death (12:20):
Probably the most critically acclaimed song on the album and a band favorite.This song begins with Kit showcasing his marching snare skills with a slow funeral march.At the end of the passage there is a single bell struck and the band erupting into a heavy section with some brutal chord progressions and lots of fusion guitar leads over it.The song then goes into it's chorus which is really just Jimmy wailing over a descending arpeggio something sort of like REM though they are not really influenced by them.After the chorus the bridge comes in which is a nice chord progression with a little guitar fill as the tail to it.Finally the most remembered part of the song a powerful sounding chord progression played over and over again under a lot of random drum fills by Kit leading into a tribal section which showcases Kit's skills which have improved even more with his incorporation of percussion from Africa,Columbia,and Brazil.The song ends with a slow guitar solo over a nice bass progression and a clean arpeggio riff.

Contradictions of the Holy (5:30):
This song is probably the most straight forward song. It has lots of medieval guitar leads over plain brutal death metal grooves and fast double bass polyrhythms under blast beats and tribal drumming.The song features growls for its entire duration and has more rhythmic riffs then the rest of the songs giving a 90s death metal sort of feel with some machine gun solos in it as well.

Breath of Death (9:16):
An instrumental piece ranging from classical to jazz to straight up in-your-face metal.Was recorded in one take, really just a jam with Jimmy and Davey.Some parts are Davey using a baritone guitar to have all 6 strings and doubling Jimmy's solos in a lower octave.This song was made only to take up space and to show off, it shows lots of improvement in Jimmy's technique with more emotional playing and technicality at the same time.Davey's bass solo will soon be considered his trademark as it utilizes guitar effects and techniques such as sweep picking and tapping.According to Davey he had to use thin strings so that he could play some parts right which gives his sound more high end.

Bleed the Truth (10:05):
BRUTAL!Heavy and technical this song has tribal breakdowns with lots of heavy chunky riffs.However there is 1 clean part in the middle which sounds rather beautiful.While the majority of the song is distorted, Davey uses a clean tone so that he cuts through the mix still playing as technical as ever, this song showcases how fast he can play with his fingers and manages to keep up with the rest of the band.The song also has a nice keyboard outro which blends classical and jazz into a lovely piece.

Policy (4:50): This song is the shortest and also has a bit of a punk edge.Mixing fast blazing guitars,blast beats, and a nice rumbling bass line, this song is pretty much progressive grindcore if that makes sense.Jimmy's vocals are an evil black metal shriek and the solos are slower and more progressive.The verse riffs are more simplistic and fast while the instrumental parts are more expressive, how the Nimrods crammed this much into a short song we will never know.

Whores and Desperates(8:30): This song was Jimmy's solo piece made entirely by him.The only completely clean song on the album it involves lots of progressive rock roots with nice keyboard passages and a jazzy vibe as well.Jimmy screams once on the song but that's all.His overall musicianship isn't too great but the emotion behind the song makes up for it and is probably one of the more mature songs on the album with a beautiful solo ending the piece.

Pain: (13:14):The ending song is almost all instrumental and very drone like.It has a long simple riff repeated over and over under a few lyrics for the first 6 minutes and the next five are very types of riffs thrown together from different genres, ending with a bass solo and a sustained guitar note.

In overall:The album is amazing mixing different genres and styles together to make a masterpiece, without a doubt the most original Nimrods album and the best!

Jimmy:Thanks it's an honor we plan to make each album better and better because we don't like criticism haha.Plus it's fun to make harder albums.

Jimmy:Ew.We don't try too hard, we naturally better ourselves our songs get better along the way.

Jimmy:Always the criticizing huh? We like our albums a long length our album is about an hour and a half that's kinda long but we don't plan to play all of these live so it's ok.

I just can't help but be massively impressed with how much you guys have evolved since I first heard you guys burst onto the scene. Each release is showcasing new found maturity sound wise and as Daniel said, you've been great for the fortunes of The Black Gates and Sudan...such a fresh approach to progressive metal is always welcome. I cannot think of a time in the past where the progressive rock/metal scene was so vibrant...Insolent Paradox, Sudan, The Nimrods, The Black Gates, The Bards..the future looks awesome

Rick Fisher
The Black Gates

Jimmy:Thanks dude, we try to make our long songs as bearable as possible haha.

High Chart:
UK:1
US:4
CAN:4
AUS:4
SA:24
A:56
EU:3
W:5

Total sales so far:618,061 after 3 weeks