Bulletsize – Respawn

Bulletsize hails from our neighbouring Östersund, Sweden. The band founded by Andreas Persson, in the year 2004 in the depths of Sweden. It’s first with the addition of its regular members in 2006 that the band got serious and started recording music. First few years since its formation the band played thrash-metal, but gradually their sound evolved to what is now; faster, angrier and heavier mix of thrash and death metal.

The first full-length, a self-titled Bulletsize debut was released in 2009. In 2010, the album The Apocalypse was released to later be re-released with Sliptrick Records, where the band also released the album Numb. During the recording of their previously stated third album, Numb, the band was again through some line-up changes, but the core of the band was always there, ready to continue the journey. Thus, the album Pansar got released with Iron Blood Death Corp in 2015. A couple of years later they also released a live album, and finally in 2023 another studio full-length entitled Respawn. After the release of Respawn they also released a single called “Lost and Found” just recently. In other words; it’s cool to see this band still alive and kicking.

This highly anticipated fifth full-length contains 16 tracks; seven ordinary tracks of total duration of app. 25 minutes, and additional six tracks recorded live from ‘Rudeboy Club’ in Poland at the end of 2015. The sound on this CD sounds as a mix of old-school thrash metal and modern days death metal. Thus, at first it seems like the band is stuck in the past, while trying to embrace the future and more modern sound. After a few more spins this album kind of gets under your skin, revealing a new details in their sound, something you can’t get with only just one listen. The album title Respawn, like the overall sound, seems like a frustration outburst for this hard-hitting quartet from Sweden.

I can not say that I was not entertained during these 16 fast, swinging and thrashing tracks from Bulletsize. I feel that there’s huge potential for this sort of a mix of old thrash and nowayds death metal. Since the number of new tracks featured is limited to seven, I feel as if they could have released it as a completely new EP, but nevertheless the inclusion of six live tracks kind of saves this rellease from being just another mediocre album.

The sound on Respawn is angry and aggressive, with plenty of melodic touches and a careful balance between mid-paced and fast rhythms, catchy riffs, an up-front bass line, thrashing and intense drumming & mostly raspy and shrieking vocals on top of a cake. Overall, I like the riffing and the melodic guitar leads (including a few well executed solos!) from this latest album by Bulletsize. A socially-conscious lyrical content deals with actual events taking place around the World today, so they’re quite relevant and something most of us can relate to. Cover art is pretty much representative of the sound on this CD. On the other hand I feel as if it could have been produced a bit better, making it more listenable and enjoyable esp. due to band member’s more modern approach to song-writing. We all know how good production and mixing job is essential for thrash/death metal, which is an extremely subjective (sub)genre of metal because huge amounts of compression and distortion are a necessity. The nature of the genre means that the recording quality must be compromised. In conclusion; Respawn is an interesting, intense and eagerly anticipated most recent release from Bulletsize. It’s good to see them still alive and angry, and I hope to hear more from this band in the near future.

For more info on this jewel-case CD with 4 pages booklet, released by Iron, Blood & Death Corp., then visit https://bulletsize.bandcamp.com/album/respawn