The Wave with Bleak – Cracked Open and Loud Again

One day I’ve seen red and my house was shaking. Hold on everyone, this is not whatever you’re thinking about. It actually happened when I met BLEAK and their single release The Wave. I was hooked and I raised the volume – and for once, the neighbours didn’t complain. Yeah, The Wave kinda hit me, but I felt good – like a surfer finally riding the wave he’s been dreaming about all his life. Except this wave doesn’t give you a tan. It drags you under, claws and all.

So here I am, standing in my kitchen, watching my coffee go cold as that track loops again – and again. Let me tell you why.

Born of Ruin, Rebuilt With Fire

I didn’t find The Wave – it found me. Felt like it’s been crawling through wires for decades, waiting for the right speakers. This thing’s been living in a vault since 1994. Caleb Daniel Lit – BLEAK’s frontman and the madman behind the curtain – wrote it back when Seattle still reeked of sweat, smoke, and cassette plastic. I was just waking up to music back then, hungry for stuff that made the walls shake – my mam can still confirm. It was raw then, and it stayed raw. Like a bottle of Finnish vodka, if you know what I’m saying — it hits harder when it’s been aging for decades.

→ Discover Other Rock Tracks That Made Our Walls Shake.

The band’s history reads like a biblical parable. BLEAK came out of Rovaniemi – yeah, that Rovaniemi. This town might sell itself as Santa’s home turf, but BLEAK comes from the side of town where the sleigh bells rust and amps howl through the dark. All this was unfolding in the late ’90s, BLEAK moving alongside a shadowy project called Sheol. Same people, different name. It felt like something was building – until it didn’t. The wrong players came in, some wrong choices followed. By 2009, BLEAK had flatlined.

But instead of giving up, Caleb just mutated. FIREAL. INKAKAI. Anonymous projects that kept the soul pumping. But part of me always wondered if BLEAK was really done, or just catching its breath underground. In 2018, something sparked – a reunion, old demos, and a new name: Sons of She’ol. Fast-forward to 2024, the band is back. And I saw a line on their site that stuck with me: “The dragon in the sky is not bound by the gold on the ground.” I don’t know if that’s about music, identity, or just the way they’ve moved. But it made sense after hearing this track:

The Wave You Send Rolls Over Me…

And what a wave it is. The lyrics hit like scars you thought had healed: “The nails of your words / Pull me down / You are the sea / Now watch me… drown.“Nothing clever here. Just a line that felt real the moment I heard it. I didn’t write it down. I remembered it anyway.

Guitar tones? Think chainsaws tuned to sorrow. There’s a beautifully dual-lead assault going on – two guitarists dancing a razor’s edge, with a Middle Eastern thread weaving tension like incense in a warzone. I didn’t try to follow who was playing what – I just let it all hit at once. It worked.

Vocally, Caleb is somewhere between a sermon and an exorcism. You hear the ghosts of Layne Staley and the punch of Cornell, sure, but he’s not cosplaying. There’s something in the way he delivers it – like it costs him a bit every time. That’s what makes it dangerous, that’s what makes it real. And the chorus? Can help myself. Yeah, I’ve been there too.

Still Breathing After the Burn

You can hear the years in this track – the kind that build up when something’s been pushed down too long. I kept waiting for the moment it would break character – some effect, some trick, something shiny. It never came. But what we’ve got here is just one honest push from start to finish.

And The Wave it shows. I didn’t even notice it had finished. That probably says enough. But instead of dragging me under, it woke something up, something shifted. Can’t really explain it. But yeah – that’s what music’s for, isn’t it?

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BLEAK is back. And this time, they’re not here to be nice. You’ve got your slice of goodwill to deal with too: Take a look around for these guys on Facebook, Instagram, Spotify – wherever you dig for music that still feels alive. You’ll see why. And yeah – everything’s red in their world right now. Check the site: bleakofficial.com