Chicago thrashers BLOODLETTER have shredded stages across the USA for over twelve years. Their new album Leave the Light Behind is a vicious culmination of over a decade’s worth of sweaty moshpits, broken bones, and riffs sharp as guillotine blades.
After releasing A Different Kind of Hell in 2023, BLOODLETTER headlined the third volume of Wise Blood’s black thrash split series Faster Than the Devil last year. Those three new songs revealed an even more sinister version of Bloodletter’s sound. Their melodies are still polished atop relentless battering ram rhythms while invoking classic thrash and modern melodeath. But Leave the Light Behind creates an atmosphere of otherworldly dread, introducing a world of darker shadows and lurking horror.
“This time around we wanted to take the melodic riffing from our Funeral Hymns record and the brute force and speed of 'A Different Kind of Hell' and really blend the two more,” explains vocalist/guitarist Pete Carparelli. “We wanted to shoot for more grandiose and dramatic arrangements, while still keeping the elements of the core BLOODLETTER sound; speed, harmonized riffs and themes that can get stuck in your head. We pushed ourselves performance-wise, tried new vocal techniques and really tried our hardest to go further than we have before musically.”
The song lyrics are rife with supernatural threats, cosmic beasts, and the specters of depression and mental illness. It is an ominous, dynamic thrash record that strikes with lethal power and leaves the listener with whiplash and a skull full of evil spirits. Leave the Light Behind will be available on Vinyl, CD, Cassette, and Digital from Wise Blood Records and Morbid & Miserable Records on June 25, 2025.
BLOODLETTER is:
Pete Carparelli - Vocals/Guitar
Tanner Hudson - Bass
Pat Armamentos - Guitar
Zach Sutton - Drums Recorded & Mixed by
Pete Carparelli at Haunted Hill Recordings
Mastered by Matt Engstrom at Reel Sounds Studios
Produced by Pete Carparelli & Matt Engstrom Artwork by
Jon Self Layout by David Jaggar Band
Photography by Cosmo Sutton
Guest Solo on “Night Terrors” by Nate Madden of Immortal Bird