DIMENSION ZERO: He Who Shall Not Bleed

Produced by Dimension Zero and Arnold Lindberg

Released: September 15, 2008

Jesper Strömblad has been a member of some pretty well known bands over the years, including In Flames, HammerFall and Sinergy. Dimension Zero is probably the least known and least appreciated of the bands he helped to form but as of 2008 is also perhaps the only one in which he manages to retain some of the pure energy and aggression that existed in his earliest rumblings. He Who Shall Not Bleed is the third full-length effort from Dimension Zero, seeing them leaving some of the thrashier elements behind and replacing them with the melodic death metal that In Flames abandoned after Whoracle.

On paper that doesn't sound so bad, but in practice if Strömblad (and his cronies Jocke Göthberg, Hans Nilsson and Soilwork's latest strings-puller Daniel Antonsson) wants to get back some of the relevance he had when he was still making killer albums then repeating the same riffs over and over again is probably not the way to do it. While the first three tracks sound like good At the Gates knock-offs, they are almost indistiguishable from one another with Nilsson's unimaginative drumming making matters even worse. Thankfully, "Hell is Within" was different enough that it made me keep listening. Even though the whole thing is completely formulaic and predictable with only slight variations on the same classic Gothenburg riffs throughout, He Who Shall Not Bleed is an enjoyable listen for the half an hour or so that it takes to rattle through your head. However, only "Way to Shine" is particularly memorable, the album's clear highlight that builds through a questionable attempt at "clean" singing into some virtually epic soloing towards the end. Apparently some versions feature a version of "Staying Alive" which I would think was really bizarre if Machinae Supremacy hadn't already done a Britney Spears cover this year.

He Who Shall Not Bleed shows that Strömblad can still rip out some thrashy death metal when he wants to, but he isn't exactly stretching his creativity very far.

1. He Who Shall Not Bleed
2. Unto Others
3. A Paler Shade of White (A Darker Shade of Black)
4. Hell is Within
5. Red Dead Heat
6. I Can Hear the Dark
7. Going Deep
8. Is
9. Deny
10. The Was
11. Way to Shine

Rating: 50%