Pass The Flask

by Thom JurekPass the Flask was originally issued on the Fiddler label, went out of print since shortly after it was issued, and is reissued here by the Bled's current label, Vagrant, with a whopping 11 bonus cuts, many coming from the band's earliest EPs. This is post-hardcore with just enough metal and screamo thrown in for good measure to make the Bled a thing unto itself. The set has been issued as a stop-gap between 2005's Found in the Flood and an album to be issued later in 2007. It's not like the band's sound changed appreciably between 2003 and 2005, through production values did. Songs have enough strange melodic territory planted inside them -- check the Cure groove evoked in the bridge of "I Never Met Another Gemini." There are many such moments, where this or that influence gets checked musically, especially on the EP cuts, where even Mike Patton's vocal madness gets touched on in "My Cyanide Catharsis." For fans who missed it the first time, this is a special bit of memorabilia, but more than that, Pass the Flask and the EP tracks trace the Bled's development almost from the very beginning.