The Bleeding - Godless Communion

The Bleeding – Godless Communion
Release Date: 18th September 2026
Label: Redefining Darkness
Bandcamp
Genre: Death Metal, Death Thrash, Extreme Metal.
FFO: Cannibal Corpse, Death, Kreator, Goatwhore, Impaled Nazarene, Pestilence, Nekromantheon.
Review By: Mark Young

Changing personnel can be a massive thing for a band. It can herald a change in direction or voice, mark the departure from a successful or unsuccessful sound and sometimes push a band on to new artistic heights. Of course, I can’t actually confirm if that is the case here. Godless Communion represents my first exposure to the London outfits latest release which sees the long term vocalist Germ replaced by Craig Land. My approach to this release is to listen to it on its own merits and effectively ignore what has come before.

So for fans of primal death metal with an eye for the brutal and a direction in which to get their next fix, Godless Communion will satisfy that itch and more. If you imagine that for a UK band, they approach it like they are from a foreign shore. What I mean by this is that we have a number of bands who cannot stretch beyond the music they take influence from. With The Bleeding, they are taking cues from classic death metal bands (Cannibal Corpse among others) and then putting their own stamp on it. Take the opener Immortal Flesh; it rips along and still manages to have a hooky chorus to it or the blasting Altar of the Ram that tears a long page from the thrash handbook and goes via Venom. They do exactly what you want this music to do – it’s fast, aggressive, and wants to pummel the listener. It’s a band that doesn’t want to be in the shadow of its influence, especially when they can do it better.

Praise of the Succubi is an example of this, taking the basic blocks and then playing them back faster. The slow down is classic, and I mean classic as it drops its velocity before ripping back up again. High art? No. Is it going to tell you where you are going wrong in life? Also no. What it does have is a furious intent that only seems to get angrier as the album progresses. They don’t have the same speed on every track; they know that it would be the equivalent of punching themselves out but don’t worry they don’t drop too far with Godless Communion showing how to mix those tempos up so it feels like you are being run over. Ending the original content is Sacrificial Onslaught, finishing the album as it started. The key is that there must not be any reduction in intent, it has to remain set at the same level that Immortal Flesh started with and it does. That is the thing, its 9 tracks of prime UK death metal that is good enough to be held up against anyone doing it at present. Born in a Casket, well that is just the cherry on top as they go back in time to when CB was at the helm of Cannibal Corpse. It’s as good a cover as you are likely to hear, but for me doesn’t overshadow the original material and serves as an effective end to proceedings. UK death metal doesn’t get much better than this.