UMUR "Blood Reign" is the debut full-length studio album by Belgian death metal act BleedSkin. The album was independently released in October 2020. BleedSkin formed in 2016 and released "The Rotten One" EP in 2018. The band recorded "Blood Reign" as a five-piece, but lead guitarist Benjamin Lefèvre has since left.

Stylistically BleedSkin deliver a relatively brutal and technically well played type of US influenced death metal. They are a very well playing unit and female lead vocalist Anouk Debecq has a snarling malicious sounding growling delivery, which reminds me a little of Ross Dolan from Immolation (and that´s definitely not a bad quality). The material are very intense, aggressive, and loaded with tempo changes, breaks, and a good balance between fast sections and mid-paced heavy grooves. It´s not the most original sounding release, but there is enough passion and conviction here to tilt an elephant, and those are redeeming qualities which make it less important that this may not be the most unique death metal album you´ve ever heard.

"Blood Reign" features a well sounding and powerful production which suits the material well. The drums could maybe have prospered from a slightly more organic sound and the guitars could also have been a little more defined in the mix, as the fast notes sometimes blur and the riffs become less sharp. These are minor issues with the sound production though, and to most ears they won´t even be issues, so overall the sound production is of a good quality.

Upon conclusion it´s not often I pick up a release from a band completely unknown to me (and a debut album no less), where I get that "hell yeah, this is the real deal" feeling when I listen to it. These guys (and girls) have managed just that and "Blood Reign" is in many ways an impressive and very promising debut album. As mentioned above it´s not a perfect release and there is room for improvement in terms of creating a more unique sound, but this album is still overall a killer release. A 3.5 - 4 star (75%) rating is deserved.