What happens when some members of a prog rock band want to spice things up a bit? They recruit like-minded musicians, call themselves Watch Me Bleed, choose the tagline “Prepare for metal!!!” and produce some aggressive, modern sounding metal. This is in a nutshell the history of the German band Watch Me Bleed, that was founded by members of the prog rock band Symphorce. Approximately 2,5 years later they released their debut album, called Souldrinker.

 

Their first effort that combines thrash and death metal with a dash of hardcore is at most points a direct hit. Songs like ‘Bloodred Rain’ and ‘SixSixSeven’ contain mighty, aggressive vocals, perfect riffing and a very solid rhythm section. No real innovation here, but as a compromise they offer perfection instead. Also the occasional guitar solos are delightful. Listening to these parts it’s obvious you’re dealing with highly skilled musicians, but at no point they cross the line of being too proggy. I even think it would have been better if they’d done more heavy solos to distinguish themselves a bit more. A downside of this record is that it has its dull moments though. A full-length is at this point a couple of minutes too long, because you tend to think you’ve heard some elements in previous tracks.

 

And then, out of the blue, there is the epic closer ‘The Bleeding Chalice’. The big question however: “why is it in this album?” It starts with a guitar intro that could have been The Haunted’s back-up riff for the song ‘Abysmal’, but it’s twice as long as the average other song on Souldrinker and has way more power metal / prog rock influences. Although it is a great song, it doesn’t totally fit the record. The song is perfect as one of the heavier songs on a prog album, but I think it’s less successful as being the most prestigious one on an album with grooving thrash and death influenced modern metal. Nonetheless ‘The Bleeding Chalice’ is by far my favourite song of Watch Me Bleed’s debut.