Thirteen Bled Promises - Foundations

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Spanish extreme metal band THIRTEEN BLED PROMISES have returned after nearly six years since their previous release with the 4-track EP “Foundation”, released October 22, 2021. The band that began in 2006 in Madrid has been likened to such labels from brutal deathcore to blackened death metal, while remaining dedicated to pushing genres boundaries within the extreme metal band banner. There debut demo, “My Deepest Sympathies” was released in 2006 with their second demo “Disimpregnations” not coming until 4 years later in 2010, both released independently. For those first two releases, the band was known as THIRTEEN BLEED PROMISE because the grammatical error was not caught until vocalist Turri studied in Ireland and informed the band that they had to change their name. Thankfully, the error was caught before they would release their debut full-length “Helipause Fleets” in 2012, this time inking a deal with Fragment Music. They would change labels to another Spanish label named Blood Fire Death for their sophomore full-length “The Black Legend” in 2015.

It has been several years, but THIRTEEN BLED PROMISES shows no signs of stopping, gigging relentlessly and still managing to release a single “The Great Fire” in 2019 before dropping a single from their newest EP – the fiery “A Humanless War” – a few months prior the release of “Foundations”. They have switched labels, yet again, and gone with the Czech Republic-based label Lacerated Enemy Records, home to such bands as VULVODYNIA, VELD, and KONKEROR. The label that has been well-established since 2004 comments on the band, “We are very pleased to announce that THIRTEEN BLED PROMISES has joined the Lacerated Enemy family…While supporting numerous well-known acts since the creation of the band, THIRTEEN BLED PROMISES was ready to enter the studio again to record another masterpiece of blackened technical death metal. The record brings its influences from progressive and technical songwriting, while still accompanied by a blackened atmospheric quality that keeps the listener intrigued about what will come next.”

They continue to defy genre pigeonholing on “Foundation” as THIRTEEN BLED PROMISES features a dizzying hybrid of tech death metal, black metal, brutal death metal and even deathcore with an ear-splitting amount of dissonance and breakneck rhythm changes that are not for a death metal novice. Honestly, the first track, “I Stole Alien Technology from a Dead Alien and Now I’m Fucking Immortal” has both a tongue-in-cheek title, letting their humor shine, but is probably the most intense from a dissonance standpoint. From the beginning, the instruments nearly sound like white noise, the distorted guitar comes at you with such speed while the vocals from Turri go from death metal growls but feature so much black metal screaming towards the latter third, its quite intense. But the track I’d recommend for the average listener would be the “Hell Froze” which has more melodic bits but doubles down on the deep, crunchy, down-tuned guitars, with plenty of blast beats, tremolo picking with heavy brutal vocals almost throughout with only light black metal screams. But then there is “Intergorelactic” with more technical guitar solos and melodic riffing that has them leaning more toward a progressive metal edge. If you’re a fan of the blackened death metal or deathcore genres that lean heavily into the more brutal genres, this is a strong recommendation.

Songwriting: 8
Musicianship: 10
Memorability: 8
Production: 10