Album Review: Bedsore - Dreaming The Strife For Love
Reviewed by Sam Jones
I haven’t dropped everything to check out an upcoming record in some time but that record is Bedsore’s sophomore full length release: Dreaming The Strife For Love. Formed in 2018 out of Rome, Italy, Bedsore are a unique band within Progressive Death Metal as their subject ventures down the avenues of more abstract ideas, accompanied by equally unusual songwriting that complements their influences. Though they released a Demo in 2018, their breakout time came in 2020 with the unveiling of Hypnagogic Hallucinations, a massive album that year and one I still stand by the belief that it’ll be a future cult classic. They released a Split in 2022 alongside Mortal Incarnation but soon fans will rejoice as they receive the band’s second album. I’ve been awaiting their follow up record for years now and to my surprise I saw the band would indeed give us precisely that prior to the year’s end. Returning once more via 20 Buck Spin for a November 29th release date, Bedsore just sneak into 2024 before the year changes. I was ready for this, knowing how unique Bedsore have already established themselves to be and thus I was anticipating just as many otherworldly atmospheres. This is Dreaming The Strife For Love.
Bedsore have already established themselves as a genuinely unique act within the world of extreme metal, but already they’re pushing the boundaries the first instant you start this record. The presence of keyboards is massively heightened and not to some background positioning either; the keyboards are thrown right into your face so not only do we understand they’re a firm part of the band’s makeup, but we know, without a doubt, they’re intrinsic to the song structure each track harnesses. Bringing saxophones, female vocals into play, the band laugh in the face of anyone who dares to claim music, regardless of genre, should be grounded with rules. I’d argue, in the context of this album, the keyboards actually function as a secondary guitar and especially because they’re alongside the riffs at every moment. There isn’t one point where their soundscape is naked with just guitar and drums and vocals alone; Bedsore are constantly immersing us within this soundscape that explains right from the outset what kind of album it is. I can see some being disappointed that this isn’t some head wrecker of a record, but Bedsore are already established as a band where that isn’t their primary objective. This record is already surpassing Hypnagogic Hallucinations entirely, taking us into more ethereal planes than we’ve ever heard before.
It’s clear to me, and shall be clear many more soon, that Bedsore are no longer satisfied with dishing out the conventional death metal that so many of their peers are content with. Listening to Bedsore is like falling into a dreamscape where the architecture of our landscape changes at a whim, the sky isn’t real and tangibility becomes a laughing affair. The opening track, nearly seven minutes long, features not a single rudimentary riff akin to death metal and yet I know fervently it’s amongst the best written pieces of music I’ve heard all year. The band have completely thrown conventional songwriting out of the window, as anything is now possible from this band. Somehow the band have managed to hit upon a balance between raw, abject power and a serene, transcendent vibe that oozes effortlessly through their songwriting. “A Colossus, An Elephant, A Winged Horse; The Dragon Rendezvous” champions this ideal more than any other on record, for the band merge two extremely distinctly, unique, juxtaposing soundscapes together that many bands already of an experimental character wouldn’t dare attempt. They also have a knack for bringing that strength to us, but then mellowing us out rapidly which then leads us back into the strongly progressive nature of their songwriting.
When you sit back to really take in everything Bedsore have to offer, and it’s a lot, you come to realise the band have also forsaken any concept of rushing their audience from A to B. It’s a good ten minutes on record before the first instance of growling vocals come in, or any seriously aggressive riffs or drums are brought into play. But even when they do, they’re always accompanied by another element; saxophones, keyboards, disrupted time signatures etc, the band have already eclipsed Hypnagogic Hallucinations in its entirety if you ask me. It’s the same band but they’ve gone thoroughly out of their way not to create anything reminiscent of their first album. Whilst the band are still playing extreme metal and incorporating the familiar power you expect from such a style, it’s evident that blunt strength is not their immediate prerogative, because in truth it never was. They’ll play some heavy riffs and vocals for you but these sequences aren’t for long and they’re soon succeeded by a flurry of keys, drums and more experimental songwriting. The band effectively challenge what can be classed as “extreme” in heavy metal.
Throughout this piece, we’ve seen how the band are pushing every boundary in extreme metal, including their own, but what I think will render this album with greater memorability is its sincerity. When various bands incorporate new ideas, and try to really go beyond what fans are already familiar with concerning their songwriting, it can feel like the band in question are merely employing ideas that are currently hot. It’s no secret saxophones, keyboards etc have been discovered in increasing number of extreme metal bands as one such idea. But concerning Bedsore, when you hear them undergo their stranger side it doesn’t come off as the band merely throwing stuff at a wall and hoping it sticks. Remove the songwriting of the keyboards, remove the arrangements of the drums, even the primary growling vocals, and the bulk of this record would fall apart in an instant. Dreaming The Strife For Love actually sounds and feels like an album four years in the making because half that time alone surely went just into its writing. You can’t haphazardly churn out songwriting like this overnight; this needs time and consideration for playing it is surely akin to a symphony for an orchestra. There are so many minute pieces and edges and implementations that need accounting for over just a minute of the band’s performance, and this record has around forty-six of those minutes to work with. Every keyboard and riff and drumming pattern, every high and low of intensity, all the myriad soundscapes this record throws up, every one of them is utterly integral to its structure and fruition and to diminish any aspect on record would harm the connectivity this record is infused with. This record really is the love child of Death, Nocturnus and Dream Theater.
In conclusion, Dreaming The Strife For Love is a record whose spell not everyone will fall under, but for those who do they are going to have an utterly incredible time here. This is the band’s most progressive and experimental work to date, but Bedsore are already renowned for leaning towards unconventional songwriting; this record merely cemented that once and for all. Throughout each of the six tracks on record the band really redefine what can be deemed as extreme metal since they don’t incorporate anything overtly crushing, there are no cacophonous surroundings, if anything the soundscape is extremely light and sticks to us only faintly. The band allow us the full freedom to sit back and truly relax whilst their ever-evolving soundscape works its magic; it’s one that continuously dips in and out of the dreamscape, periodically awakening us to the real world before thrusting us back into its cerebral nether. It’s one of those records that easily took exactly the amount of time since the release of their last record because of the sheer complexities their songwriting harbours. The band hardly sit still for a moment, rooted though momentarily before completely uprooting themselves to make way for the next sequence to dazzle and enthral us. Yet, in spite of everything I’ve heard, I do not believe this to be a challenging album; I’d argue this is easier to listen to than Hypnagogic Hallucinations and is somehow more streamlined (which seems hard to fathom given the band’s aversion to remaining stationary). Once you’re done with this record the first time through, you’ll more than likely, such as myself, go back and play tracks in random sequencing, just to revisit that astonishing songwriting, experiencing it all again. This is a record you can’t leave alone because you’ll have no desire to; it’s hypnotic, entrancing, genuinely spellbinding. You could very easily replay the same piece five times over before proceeding through to the rest of the track order and that wouldn’t surprise me in the slightest. Unless something other comes around during the last weeks, this is my album of the year for 2024. Absolutely sensational.
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