From UK metal’s underground to the world’s biggest stages, Bleed From Within are finally reaping overdue rewards. But strident seventh album Zenith is just the next upward step from a gang of old buddies who always give their best…
Buckfast Tonic Wine might be the tipple of choice in their gritty hometown of Glasgow, but Bleed From Within have matured like a far more refined bottle of red. Not just in their coppery good looks, of course. Frontman Scott Kennedy is wearing the sleeplessness of a new dad as we catch up this sunny Scottish evening, while drummer Ali Richardson dials in from Seattle where he’s currently on tour with other band Sylosis, both handsomely roadworn versions of their younger selves. And rather than just lines around the eyes, all the endless miles travelled and shit taken has finally brought them to the brink of stardom.
“Overnight success was never on the cards for Bleed From Within,” Ali reflects. “It was just never in our path. We’ve always accepted that. The business of the band was built around the fact we weren’t massively successful or making loads of money. It’s that this is what we’ve always wanted to keep doing. Our story is one of struggle and resilience. That’s what BFW is all about. We’ve been through it. We’ve dealt with it. We’ve sung about it. We’ve related to fans via it. You even see it in our music: the struggle to find the next thing.”
Seventh album Zenith still seethes with that sense of struggle. But it also shines with the confidence of a band who’ve begun to see their efforts bear fruit. Mere months ago, they stepped out onto arena stages across Europe as sole support for Slipknot’s 25th anniversary tour. Three of the last four years, they’ve threatened to steal the show at Download. Other recent tourmates have included Trivium, The Ghost Inside and Amon Amarth.
Rather than chasing down those moments, however, it’s about tightening the bonds within.
“It’s not about being the ‘big band’,” Scott insists. “It’s about exploring things musically. I love what we do. I love the music that we make. And I love the fact that we get to make it together. We’ve been going for two decades now, but we all knew each other before we were in this band, and that friendship remains the most important thing. And we’ve matured together. Nowadays, as a group of friends, we’ll open up and talk about our feelings with each other a lot more. Previously we’d have been getting drunk to forget about them.”
“It’s an age thing,” Ali nods. “It’s about self-awareness, getting to know each other as a collective, seeing things change and the new sets of challenges that present themselves. Like how Kennedy has just become a dad. The more you grow and mature as individuals or a collective, the more you learn about yourself. Bleed From Within have always been honest. There’s not an ego between us. We’re still the working-man’s metal band. But with time and experience we’ve become more introspective, more capable of [processing] what’s bothering us. When you’re younger, it’s so frustrating just trying to figure that stuff out!”
Adversity is still very much the fuel for Zenith’s fire. Pivotal track A Hope In Hell opens its chorus with the lyrics, ‘We fell before, we’ll fall again…’ and feels like the ultimate tribute to the willingness to overcome. Dying Sun combines its warnings and wishes: ‘Don’t stand in my way / Give me the strength to take your pain away!’ Known by No Name demands that rather than lying down and giving up, BFW’s followers should boldly, ‘Rise from the grave.’
“If there’s anyone who’s qualified to talk about getting fucked over and coming back, it’s us,” Ali grins. “Who can’t relate to that? A big part of our learning has been conveying that message in a way that fans can understand. Seeing them latch onto it in a live environment is such a great experience. And Kennedy has a great sense of what will resonate in a room. We saw it with songs like Levitate from our last couple of albums. Now, we just want more…”
The vocalist nods. “All the shit that we’ve been through – being fucked over by record labels, being fucked over by management – would have destroyed so many other bands. It’s only that we enjoy making music together that keeps us going. If you’re talking about things that don’t mean anything to you, people see through it in an instant. People gravitate towards that authenticity. If we’ve had any success as a band, I believe it’s down to that.”
Stylistically, Zenith is more of a step into the unknown. Patience, perseverance and consistency might be some of this band’s greatest strengths, but the time had come to stretch themselves sonically. Driven by collaboration with the broader collective of bassist Davie Provan alongside guitarists Craig ‘Goonzi’ Gowans and Steven Jones – whose melodic clean vocals elevate several stand-out moments – they built in subtle new directions.
“We had a formula that worked,” Ali shrugs. “But it felt like it had become [too much of] a safe space. I can’t remember who said it [Einstein, apparently] but I agree with that quote: ‘The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.’ Changing the parameters allowed us to be more creative. I’m not sure we were even conscious of it, but halfway through the album process it was clear we were taking risks!”
Most ear-catching is the inclusion of bagpipes on smashing single In Place Of Your Halo, courtesy of Red Hot Chilli Piper Scott Wood. Obvious as it seems for a Scottish band, BFW are wary of slipping into cliché. But the pipes’ atmospheric hum feels close to perfect.
“The thing with us is that we find a lot of ideas cringe,” Scott smiles. “There’s always a battle going on in our heads when we write parts like that where we’re asking whether it is too cringe. But I think that means the execution is always a bit subtler, a bit more tasteful.”
“Goonzi has wanted to have bagpipes on a song for years,” Ali picks up. “When he brought this to us, it was like, ‘Actually, that’s pretty good.’ He’s probably had 1,000 of those ideas over the last couple of decades and they’ve all been shot down. Now people are responding positively to this one, he’s all like, ‘I fuckin’ told yis!’ People are saying they want bagpipes on every song, but they need to simmer down. We’re absolutely not becoming ‘Bagpipe-core!’”
“Hey!” Scott teases. “We’d be wearing kilts onstage every night if it was up to me…”
Elsewhere, delicate variations build up into a stirring whole. Flesh-ripping opener Violent Nature isn’t just a callback to BFW’s deathcore roots, by the boys’ reckoning it might be the gnarliest song they’ve ever done. The mercurial title-track deploys slabs of crunching brutality alongside pockets of almost ambient self-reflection. God Complex packs the kind of stomping, mainstage-ready bombast that would give Parkway Drive a run for their money.
A host of guest spots elevate proceedings further still: collaborations with a peers and heroes who can meaningfully add to the whole rather than attention-grabbing name-drops. Alluvial shredder Wes Hauch and solo six-stringer Rabea Massad deliver face-melting solos. Hannah Boulton once again adds backing vocals. Ali’s Sylosis frontman Josh Middleton lends his considerable heft to a riveting remix of 2024 single Hands Of Sin. Mastodon mastermind Brann Dailor layers his hypnotic vocals over gleefully overblown highlight Immortal Desire, having befriended Scott during Lamb Of God’s Headbangers Boat cruise in 2023. “I bought Brann a glass of wine,” Scott smiles. “We’ve been friends ever since!”
Concluding the sonic odyssey, no spot is more emotionally resonant than the soft-pressed keys from Sikth’s Dan Weller on massive final track Edge Of Infinity. All massive SikTh fans growing up, the band see it as a thread connecting back to BFW’s youth. More than that, it is a bookend that emphasises quite how epic and ambitious Zenith has turned out to be.
“It’s the first time we’ve really thought about an album in terms of taking listeners on a journey,” Scott expands. “We start with arguably the fastest, heaviest song we’ve ever done and end with our softest, most melodic. Then we thread everything else in between.”
Often the top of one mountain proves to be the bottom of the next. Titling this album Zenith could be taken as some admission that the 11 songs within are as good as it’s ever going to get. Tackling that thought they refer to the true meaning of the word: the highest point in the celestial sphere directly above the point where one currently stands. That space above them remains to be expanded into. And as Bleed From Within’s journey sees them traipse further around our globe, the definition of what that zenith looks like will continue to evolve.
“It’s the best we’ve ever been,” Scott says. “But that doesn’t mean it’s the best we’ll ever be. It’s about always holding ourselves to a high standard. We wouldn’t have it any other way.”
“In a lot of people’s eyes, we are still a new band,” Ali adds. “We meet lots of people who tell us how great it is to have ‘discovered’ us, then they realise we’ve been going for 20 years and are releasing our seventh album. We’ve reached [a degree of success and security] now that feels nice. But we’ve still got the freshness and appetite to get out there and do this. At some of those Slipknot shows, there were still 5,000 or 10,000 people who didn’t know who we were. Those are the moments that excite. They light a fire under us.”
“I still feel like we are a new band,” Scott smiles. “We’re more hungry, more driven, more enthusiastic than we’ve ever been. There’s no jadedness here, just wisdom and experience.”
Perspective, too. If you’d asked the BFW boys what their dream achievements were when starting out in 2005, they’d have listed two: opening for Slipknot and getting to perform at Glasgow’s legendary Barrowland Ballroom. By the end of October, they’ll have checked off both: the first night of the two at The Barras that will end a massive European headline tour having sold out in three weeks and the second well on its way to doing the same. As we wrap up our chat, they admit there is always a pause for reflection when dreams come true, and there’s a tease of an even bigger Glaswegian celebration come next summer, but ultimately, they’ll just keep heads down, plugging away like they always have.
“People ask us what we want to accomplish with every album we release,” Ali says. “But the answer is always the same. Each new record is a vehicle to allow us to keep doing what we do. How an album is received, by the press or by the fans, is out of our control. All that matters to us is that we’re moving forward, going in the right direction, continuing to hold ourselves to the same high standard we always have. Yes, we honestly believe that Zenith is the best collection of songs we’ve ever done, and we’re so excited to see what people think about it. But beyond that? It’s just one foot in front of the other. ‘Blinkers on. Don’t stop!’”
Zenith is out now via Nuclear Blast. Bleed From Within tour the UK in October – get your tickets now.
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