I just love it when a band’s name, artwork, and Bandcamp tags all conspire together to tell you exactly what sort of music you’re about to hear. In the case of Denver’s BleakHeart, this is very much the case (their Bandcamp tags include the word “sad”). Gearing up for their debut release, titled Dream Griever and set for release on October 23rd, these guys play a melancholy, lingering, theatrical sort of doom. It’s tinged with plenty of shoegaze, darkwave, and goth trappings while also constantly hovering in those rarified spaces known as “funeral”. Oh, and they also feature one Kelly Schilling (Dreadnought) on vocals and keys, so you know things are about to get haunted. Head on down below for your first taste!
Of the two singles already out there, I chose “The Visitor” because I simply adore its structure. Building up for more than four minutes of its eight minute runtime, “The Visitor” takes its time to build its aural scaffolding around us. The guitars are deep and dreamy, echoing as if from within a well, while the way that the keys interact with them reminds us of Earth, during their The Bees Mades Honey in the Lion’s Skull and Hibernaculum era. In general, BleakHeart have this dripping, lush vibe that Earth were going for during this time, later extrapolated into an explosive outro to the track. The guitars become even thicker as they usher the track to its timely death, releasing all of the pent up energy built during its more restrained opening.
Schilling, naturally, does a marvelous job on the vocals. It’s interesting to hear her voice in this context. While Dreadnought obviously has more doom-y, introspective sections, here the vocals have “just” those kinds of vibes to bounce off of. And bounce they do, injecting the track with a lot of power and energy. Put all of the above together (and embellish with some excellent drums to crown the whole thing) and you get one hell of a track/release.
Don’t forget to pre-order the album via the Bandcamp link above. This one is sure to set your heart a-tingling.