Bleed From Within Reflect On New Album ‘Zenith’

‘I did think there was something special with some of the songs, but it wasn’t until I heard the album in full when it was mixed. I was like, fuck, we have something good here!’ Scott Kennedy, vocalist of Scottish metal band Bleed From Within explains as seventh album Zenith, drops worldwide.

‘When we started hearing some of the songs coming together, – ‘In Place Of Your Halo’ being a standout one, the opening track, ‘Violent Nature’. I was so excited by that song from the second it was written and some of these songs were written three years ago – I definitely felt that we had something special.’

Zenith, a title to reflect the band at its, so far, creative peak, is in my humble opinion the best British album in the last fifteen years. Not one song is weak, no filler songs and it still has stands out like God Complex and Hands Of Sin to name two songs out of any eleven.

‘I feel like we put most of our energy and our focus into the songs individually and make sure that every song is the best song it can be. The only thing we did know as the album started coming together was we wanted ‘Violent Nature’ to start the album and ‘Edge Of Infinity’ to finish the album because they’re polar opposites. ‘Violent Nature’ is the fastest, most aggressive thing we’ve ever done, and ‘Edge Of Infinity’ is probably the most sort of melodic and epic song we’ve ever done. To have both sides of that spectrum and then have the rest of the album sort of take you on a journey between those two polar opposites, that was the only thing we really did know.’

What the band really know is how to make crushing songs full of neck snapping riffs, stomping beats and mosh pit inducing tornadoes of songs. It’s something that is very much in the mindset of the band when they craft their music.

‘We’ve always thought about that stuff. It’s specifically mostly me and Ali Richardson that write all the vocals in the band. Ali’s an amazing writer and my favourite songs to sing are always the ones that he writes. So I love having him involved. We are a band that sort of pride ourselves on a live show and we’ve been a band for twenty years now, so I feel like we’ve really got that side of things dialed in. I think you’d be doing yourself a disservice if you weren’t thinking about the live show when you were writing the songs, because essentially you’re writing those songs to take them to a live show. Sometimes you pull it off, sometimes you don’t. I think that’s where the issues lie. If there’s songs that don’t sound like it, it’s because you’ve just not pulled it off. It’s a hard thing to do is write hooks in a song. It’s really, really difficult.’

The album does feature a few guest spots, close friend Josh Middleton from Sylosis on Hands Of Sin and Mastodon’s Brann Dailor on Immortal Desire. How does a bunch of grubby Glaswegians get a legend like Dailor on their record?

‘Oh, we are just all big Mastodon fans, like huge Mastodon fans. Specifically, for me personally, I know all the guys probably agree with us, but his voice is one of my favourite voices, man. It just sounds, I dunno, it is got this seventies weird haunting tone to his voice and I’m obsessed with his voice. Two years ago we did the Lamb Of God cruise, the Headbanger Boat. We were on stage playing and turned to the side and Brann was just standing watching us with Randy Blythe! I was like, fuck me man, this is all my heroes just standing watching our show. Fucking weird! He comes up and said hi, I bought him a glass of red wine and we just got chatting away. Once it came to the recording process of the album, the song, ‘Immortal Desire’, I couldn’t really think of any cool ideas for the chorus, that song always sort of had a Mastodon vibe going on. I was like, why don’t we ask Brann? I reached out and he was like, a hundred percent, let’s do it. So that’s sort of how it came about and I’m so glad it did because I love his voice so much and he absolutely nailed it on that track.’

Talking of voices nailing the tracks, longtime fans will notice the limits Kennedy pushes himself on this record, something done with deliberate focus from the front man.

‘Yeah, a hundred percent. I always try and do that every album. I always try and learn newbie techniques every single album so that I can keep furthering my vocal ability. This time we recorded with one of my good friends, Dan Weller, who is the guitar player in a band called SikTH. I’m a huge SikTH fan so I obviously jumped at the chance to record with Dan because he’s also an amazing producer, an incredible songwriter and he actually brought quite a few things out of me that I didn’t know I could do. So, I definitely give him some praise there for that. I don’t think my vocals on this album would be quite what they are if it wasn’t for Dan.’

We will finish with a particular Scottish anecdote, supporting Slipknot at a sold-out Hydro in Glasgow. One of great pride however also nerves.

‘It was definitely the highlight of my career, no question. Mostly because my dad was in the crowd and got to see me do that. My dad, my wife and my in-laws were all in the crowd watching us play that venue. That was one of the most nervous I’ve ever felt on stage because of that reason, because I knew my dad and they were watching. Obviously within that just to play that venue was just a dream come true and Slipknot being one of my favourite bands. To do that tour and to play that venue and it just felt like a full circle moment. It was a total dream come true.

‘It was terrifying. I very, very rarely get nervous before I go on stage. Now I get ’em a little bit, but that day, man, I was sick all day. I don’t think I ate the whole day before the show. My wife forced me to eat a banana before I went on. There were nerves. It was brutal, man. It was one of those shows I was just glad to get it over with even though I was having the time of my life. It felt like the whole city got behind us. Obviously still so many people there that didn’t know who we were but as soon as I started talking and people realised that we were Scottish, the whole crowd just started cheering. I could barely continue talking after it. They were just so loud. It was unbelievable, man. It was truly, honestly one of the most special days of my life.’

Interview By Iain McCallum

Zenith is out now via Nuclear Blast