Divine Heresy - Bleed The Fifth
Roadrunner Records
Death Metal/Metalcore
10 songs (38'49)
Release year: 2007
Roadrunner Records
Reviewed by Crims

I guess I’ve been living under a rock for the past few years but I completely missed the news that Dino Cazares left Fear Factory. Well, apparently he did, as most of you probably already knew and this is his new band, Divine Heresy, and their first release entitled Bleed The Fifth. Joining Cazares is relatively unknown Tommy Cummings on vocals, Joe Payne on bass, and drummer-for-hire Tim Yueng whose most notable credits include Vital Remains and Hate Eternal. Fear Factory have released some solid material over the years, and some absolute garbage as well. As my tastes in Metal have evolved I’ve progressively enjoyed Fear Factory less and less since the mid 90’s but if I’m in the right type of mood I still get enjoyment out of most of their material. Naturally, there are some similarities to Fear Factory but also some key differences. It’s actually a nice balance that should allow both long-time Fear Factory fans and detractors enjoyBleed The Fifth on some degree.

Fear Factory have always been known for the excessive palm-muted riff chugging that while forming very little if no sense of melody, provided a machine-gun like rhythm attack that would normally incorporate the double kicks on the same pattern. There is quite a bit of that here, largely in the same manner, but there are two main differences. The drum production is a lot less electronic and drum-machine sounding and sounds more natural and the rest of the cymbal and snare drum playing is much closer to Death Metal than Fear Factory was/is. Also, as opposed to making up the majority of the bands sound it only makes up about half of the CD with the rest incorporating more traditional Death Metal riffs in the vein of Morbid Angel and Monstrosity. This also includes some dynamic drum patterns and quick blast beats to accentuate certain sections. What this means is the machine-gun riff attack is balanced out by something that has some melody in it making the overall sound less one-dimensional. Occassionally the riffs tread away from the traditional Death Metal sound and machine-gun riffs and weave their way into somewhat of a metalcore style as one might hear in the more Metal-centric metalcore bands such as Shadow’s Fall and God Forbid.

Vocally Cummings is actually quite similar to Burton C. Bell. He provides both a harsh screamed style, which would easily fit into most Metalcore bands while occasionally going into more of a mid-range, almost Black Metal style. Also present are clean vocals that you can, once again, find in almost any Metalcore band and certain metal bands like Scar Symmetry. If done well I actually like this style of clean vocals but here they seemed to be misplaced. We first hear them on Failed Creation, and here they work the best as they add melody and a certain degree of catchiness to the music, while in later tracks when it appears again it seems to be used with backgrounds riffs and rhythms that don’t seem to be ideal, almost giving the clean vocals a “tacked-on” at the last minute feel.

The ever-present atmosphere building keyboards of Fear Factory are not here giving the overall sound of Divine Heresy a more modern Death Metal sound than the Industrial-Cyber-Post-Thrash blah blah blah whatever you want to call what Fear Factory plays and perhaps this is an important distinction that might allow this band to generate more of a Death Metal fan-base. The best part of this release is probably the drum performance by Yueng who gives us a blistering fast double bass filled CD with a lot of fills and quick starts and stops. The dynamic intensity of the drums helps make the music sound more varied than it probably is, and due to some half-Thrash half-Death Metal riffs played over the double bass patterns the music reminded me of recent Dimmu Borgir on occasion, minus the circus keyboards (of course).

So who is this going to appeal to? I would say long time Fear Factory fans the most. There are enough similarities to bring fond memories (if you’re a fan) of Demanufacture while the other influences incorporated bring in other bands (mainly the Metalcore stuff) that most Fear Factory fans probably already liked. For the non-fan is there enough quality Death Metal to sway the non-believer? I’m going to have to go with maybe. If you absolutely hated Fear Factory you probably hate all things Metalcore as well, and traditional Death Metal influences (through riffs and drumming) probably aren’t present enough for most people but may be for others. So to change around my opening statement it would be better to clarify that both hardcore Fear Factory fans and casual fans (such as myself) will probably get a good deal of enjoyment out of this but the rest are probably 50-50. Try before you buy.

Killing Songs :
Bleed The Fifth, Failed Creation, Rise Of The Scorned, False Gospel
Crims quoted 78 / 100
Other albums by Divine Heresy that we have reviewed:
Divine Heresy - Bringer Of Plagues reviewed by Goat and quoted 70 / 100
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