track review:
Bleek - Fins

words by Jack Gross
photographs by @caught_on_film_photography

10 August 2026

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Fins, from Berlin, MD two-piece Bleek, is an odyssey of sonic multitude. Beginning with slamming drums oscillating between the left and right speaker, it devolves into a fast-paced, winner-takes-all frenzy of shoegaze and alternative metal. With clanging metallic drums, atmospheric passages hinging on presumed defeat, and androgynous raspy whispers that glide between spoken language and reversed implacability, Fins channels standing in the eye of the storm. Moving in phases, the track wafts between lightning-speed harmony between the band’s guitarist, doubling on vocals, and drummer, and mid-paced meditations focused largely on the vocalist’s intersection with intimate guitar work. Fins’s lyricism, too, is similarly downtrodden, aching, and steeped in the depths of solitude. The track’s as much about sharks (“fins”) as it is destructive relationships; “your world // turning in commotion // feed me to the sharks // and watch me fade away”. Bleek’s most standout qualities are the band’s willingness to allow their riffs to evolve— Fins builds throughout its runtime, as melodies are reinjected with new fervor. Dense repetition in the band’s instrumentation creates both a feeling of intense familiarity and an ambitious sense of momentum. For fans of Deftones, TOOL, Loathe, and Fleshwater, Bleek reworks the conventions of nu-metal and shoegaze towards their own means; their new single Fins is out now on Spotify, and Apple Music.