Mouth For War hail from Colorado and outside of this release are new to these ears.  Having released An Ear Kept To The Ground ep in 2019, and Life Cast In Glass full-length in 2021.   Bleed Yourself is their second full-length album.

Mouth For War play a beatdown version of metalcore with nods to bands such as Hatebreed, Lamb of God, Pantera, Deathcore elements and Meshuggah.  Yes…you will hear some Meshuggah style djent heavy riffing and many pits will be raging with Mouth For War.  I had received this through Promo JukeBox and there was a glitch, I’d never experienced with other promos.  Luckily I was able to get through to Liz, at the company, and she was able to send me the new link.  She also followed it up with an atomic leg drop to my face, which I gladly accepted, because I wanted the link to work correctly for me.  Thanks a lot Liz!

Bleed Yourself contains 13 songs in like 35 minutes and this is the perfect length of time, because there are a lot of songs, keeping the songs short..is excellent for this type of music and Mouth For War only are here to kick our teeth down our throats, throttle your lifeless body and then body slam you and your toy poodle, named fluffy, right through the ground, again and again and again and again.

“Roses In Place Of Your Ashes” starts with a nice hammering of nails, maybe through a coffin, and then a little thrash metal speed and right into a brutal beat-down slam, than back into the thrash with the vocals.  Trae Roberts has a damn good set of pipes as he berates and scolds us through the mic-I even felt the spittle through my speaker…no joke.  The isolated guitar riff at the 1.49 mark is the Holy Shit moment because it goes into a brutal slam that has some deathcore leanings.  Hot damn a terrific album opener.

“The Plight Of Those You Left Behind” is up next and starts like a Meshuggah song.  Massive double bass and intense heavy AF riffing.  Some cool bass guitar isolated moments with the vocals in the background, until the brutal beatdown returns and has me also thinking of one of my favorite bands, Emmure.  Right before the 2-minute mark, the thrash speed returns reminding me of Pantera, and right back into the heavy groove.  Mouth For War could be considered a beefier  Pantera.  Let’s say Pantera kept their songs to 2-3 minutes not the 4-5 minute numbers their average song lengths were.

“Under the Gun” has more massive heaving riffs with that undercurrent of bass heaviness..This song is sure to level city blocks from here to the other side of the world.  Snappy and poppy-sounding drums really make this song hit hard.  Some of the vocals do definitely resemble deathcore and the double bass at the 2.20 section with the stop-and-start heavy AF guitar riffing is Broooootal.  The heaving slams, during this song, will have Chasity “I Don’t Take Shit From No-one” doing brutal ass windmill kicks, in the pit, just as she did in 1998 that sent Tom from the band Drop The Mic, to the hospital.   The band closes with the title track and it starts with a massive groove and a little while later we get some great rumbling bass guitar which is upped in the mix, which the band does at times…I dig it.  There are some guitar melodies on this song as well and a bit ethereal too, I was not expecting that.  A surefire cool element.  The rest of the band is rounded out with: Mason Sego – drums, Gabe Moya – guitar, Jonah Starbuck – guitar & Michael Guglielmi – bass.  I wanted to include all their names, because they all add something special to this album.

Bleed Yourself from Mouth For War took me by surprise and knocked me on my ass and across the floor.  Featuring maybe the most punishing and heavy production for 2023, this album is massive sounding.  It’s metalcore mixed with djent, deathcore and thrash metal elements and I may not be the biggest metalcore fan, but combined with the other styles above, which I love, won me over as soon as I heard the first track.  This is bash people in the pit music, as well as taking some people and getting them in the camel and cobra clutch moves pit slamming brutality.  One of the best albums of 2023.  Ferocious shit!!

[Visit the band's website]

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