There’s always a challenge writing a piece of music longer than the average length of a pop song for today’s listening audience. According to Vox.com, that average is anywhere from three to five minutes. That average is often run over in metal, where an artist or band stretches out to explore sonic territory, often building off a musical idea or using a through line based around jamming. Case in point: in 2012, She Said Destroy released an almost 30 minute long single track EP titled Bleeding Fiction. 10 years later the band has released a “sequel” in Bleeding Fiction II: Child of Tomorrow. Again, it’s a single track EP though it’s about half the running time of the original. This piece is full of ideas and that’s a bit of a problem. This song sounds like a band that had an EP full songs that mashed them into one sonic collage.
Bleeding Fiction II: Child of Tomorrow is a quilt of a “song”. There’s sections of different sounds that get pieced together to create a whole thing. Those sections actually sound good. This isn’t an exhausting listen by any stretch of the imagination.
However, there’s nothing connecting these sections together. The band isn’t building the individual sections around say, a riff or reinterpreting another piece of music. There’s nothing in one section that really leads into the next. Some sections sound similar to earlier ones but it’s obvious it’s not a reprise. It’s a chaotic effect that might leave listeners a little bewildered after the 14 minute run time is up.
Bleeding Fiction II: Child of Tomorrow is a disorienting listen. It sounds like the band took all the bits of ideas they had and stitched together to make one song. If it’s meant as a means to develop some of these ideas later or to experiment, then it succeeds. However, if this is meant to be all one piece, listeners should be ready for a rollercoaster ride.
-Dan
Bleeding Fiction II: Child of Tomorrow is available now on Mas-Kina Recordings. For more information on She Said Destroy, visit the band’s Facebook page.
Nine Circles 