‘…a hauntingly beautiful experience that utterly consumes you with cinematic magnificence…’
Originally having formed between Chicago and San Diego back in 2019, Bleached Cross have been honing their self-described “oppressive post-punk” sound since 2019. Taking influence from industrial, nu-wave, and gothic realms, the band released their self-titled debut in 2022, and showcased an intense and tastefully theatrical style, rich with both glittering darkness and genuine emotive weight.
2024 saw the band unleash a superb split EP with Pennsylvania’s True Faith, featuring the ethereal ‘Grief’s Eternal Wound’. Since then, the band have been toiling away at their sophomore full-length, signing with New Morality Zine and offering a pre-production demo of new material last Halloween. That work has finally come to fruition in the form of ‘Wrath’.
In spite of the blood and gloom, ‘Wrath’ is a record entirely consumed by love. Whether it is the love that keeps us living, guilt for hurting those we love, or the love for those that have transcended their mortal form, ‘Wrath’ is a stirring abyss of passion, adoration, and dedication through life’s hells. Combined with the oppressive darkness of the record’s consistently phenomenal instrumentals, the result is a hauntingly beautiful experience that utterly consumes you with cinematic magnificence.
The record whirrs into life with pulsing introductory number ‘Thorn Crown’, the words “you are forgiven” echoing against a backdrop of gloomy synths and shimmering vocal melodies. ‘Season of the Witch’ roils with tectonic desperation, crushing grooves carved out by strident bass lines and hardcore-infused percussion; the track rages with a desperation to join those that we have lost, grief existing as an overwhelming outpouring of love that threatens to bleed the body dry.
‘Crucible’ serves as a captivating lead single for this record, yet manages to sound even better within the context of the record. A fiercely gut-wrenching exploration of losing somebody to longterm sickness, or perhaps the weathering of old age, immense, cinematic choruses that are threaded with simply incredibly melodies crash down into pensive, atmospheric post-chorus segments, before revving up once more through nu-wave toned verses. It it an absolute masterclass in momentum, and an undeniable song of the year contender.
‘Tomb’ is a cold, bristling number, punctuated by screamed vocals and snares that land like hammer on metal. Harlee Young offers a gorgeous, ethereal presence in the track’s back half, shepherding the melody through the dense layers of bitter rumination. ‘Requiem’ pulses with nightclub fervour, buoyed by a hypnotic stomping rhythm undulating beneath lyrics that deal with the human fate of becoming dust. Conversely, ‘Lingering Souls’ is a defiantly hopeful cut, with surprisingly infectious melodies that are simply begging for a crowd to sing in tandem; “true love never dies”, as simple as it is, may perhaps be the single most important line of the record.
That testament to the strength of love reaches a perfectly human conclusion with the record’s title track. Trauma can push us to the darkest points of the human psyche, and the temptation to permit grief to destroy us can be wholly overwhelming. Yet true love never dies; there is strength to be found in not only the loved ones that remain with us, but those that now live only through the memories we keep of them. In careless hands, this could have been terribly saccharine, but Bleached Cross ensure that it instead feels incredibly tender and cathartic; love won’t stop the pain, but the pain is proof of that love ever existing, and should be cherished for what it is.
Bleached Cross’ self-titled debut was a great record. This sophomore album is not; it is instead wholly essential listening that takes everything that makes Bleached Cross so enchanting, and magnifies it tenfold. Whilst the band maintain the dark theatre that made their original material so electrifying, the desperately painful emotive weight lands with incredible catharsis; the soundtrack to the ways we haunt the graveyard of our life. As the nights get darker, this record simply needs to be part of your rotation.
RATING: 92/100
For Fans Of: The Black Black, The Cure, Joy Division, I Don’t Know How But They Found Me, Fontaines D.C.
Physical copies are available to purchase here.
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