(Wil Cifer penned the following very enthusiastic review of the first Internal Bleeding album in 7 years. It will be released by Maggot Stomp on October 17th.)
Whenever I hear the term “deathcore” being used to describe a band, it normally turns out to sound more like something left over from the Myspace years, rather than the blend of hardcore and death metal that a band like Internal Bleeding kicks up on their new album Settle All Scores.
These guys have been around since the ’90s and have always been ahead of their time. Now, perhaps the kids call this sort of thing “Slam,” but the reality is it’s just hardcore-influenced death metal. Not sure what it is about places like Long Island and Buffalo, New York, but it makes people angry, considering how Cannibal Corpse formed in Buffalo three years before these guys. When it comes to being hyper-aggressive, the two bands are cut from a similar cloth, though Internal Bleeding does not invoke splatter horror vibes, but a gritty street-wise feel.
Photo by Paul McNeill
The first three songs are driven by crushing breakdown-like grooves, before they begin to switch things up with their syncopation. This, combined with the fact that this is the band’s first album with Sacrificial Slaughter vocalist Steve Worley. This addition allows the band to tweak their approach to blend the riffs with the more hardcore-like vocal phrasing. This is not to say his delivery is not that of a death metal vocalist, as he commands a powerful grunting gurgle; the difference lies more in where he puts his voice on the beat, which makes the difference.
Worley’s lyrics are growled in such a manner that, despite their brutality, there is articulation that accents the guitar on a song like “Crown of Insignificance” to give purpose and hooks. The syncopated call and response between the hardcore vocals and the growled vocal work proves to be effective and sets them apart from other death metal bands.
All three of the band’s former growlers also lend their voices to this album in guest spots, which is cool. Jay Lowe is on “Glorify the Oppressor”. The other two are on the last song, which finds the band shifting their momentum to back off into a slower, more dramatic intro that is a welcome change. It turns into a pretty crushing affair.
This has been an impressive year for death metal, and the albums that have captured my attention have all offered something different. This can be said of Settle All Scores. Its sense of in-your-face real-life aggression, injected into powerful riffs with groove, is not something I have gotten from other death metal albums this year, which is a testament to the enduring quality of what Internal Bleeding do.
They are not using their instruments to bring a horror movie to life, but tearing their hearts out to show you how real life is worse than anything conjured in Hollywood, making it a fitting soundtrack to life these days, and one of the best death metal albums of 2025. You don’t have to be a hardcore fan to appreciate what these guys are doing, as it is still true to what fans of the death metal genre want delivered: blood red aggression delivered with all their heart.
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