Bleed the Fifth Blast Beat Pattern — Tim Yeung (Divine Heresy) Drum Lick | MetalForge
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Learn the Bleed the Fifth Blast Beat Pattern drum lick by Tim Yeung of Divine Heresy. From Bleed the Fifth (Bleed the Fifth (2007)). Divine Heresy's 2007 debut album *Bleed the Fifth* introduced Tim Yeung to a wider audience as a dru...
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1. Tim Yeung's Signature Licks — Divine Heresy's 2007 debut album *Bleed the Fifth* introduced Tim Yeung to a wider audience as a drummer capable of bridging the brutal death metal world with the more accessible groove-forward sound that Dino Cazares brought from his Fear Factory years. The title track is the album's defining moment: a relentless, high-velocity death metal assault where Yeung's blast beat pattern is the engine driving the entire arrangement forward. At approximately 200 BPM, the blast on "Bleed the Fifth" sits at the upper boundary of what most drummers can sustain cleanly, yet Yeung executes it with the same machine-like consistency that earned him the drum chair in Morbid Angel, Vital Remains, and Hate Eternal before Divine Heresy ever existed. His approach to blasting is rooted in the extreme metal tradition of Pete Sandoval and Derek Roddy: single strokes between snare and ride or hi-hat, the kick locked tightly underneath, with every limb playing a clearly articulated role rather than blurring into noise. The blast on "Bleed the Fifth" is not purely about maximum speed — it is constructed to serve the song's riff architecture, tightening where Cazares' guitar locks in and opening slightly where a passage breathes. This musical awareness within extreme tempo is what separates a professional extreme metal drummer from a merely fast one. Yeung's snare tone on the record is crisp and cutting, chosen deliberately to compete with the dense, multi-tracked guitar signal that characterises Roadrunner Records-era extreme metal production. Each snare hit remains distinct even when the pattern runs unbroken through long passages — a product of consistent stroke weight and the clarity that only comes from years of practising blast beats cleanly rather than at full speed from day one. The kick pattern under the blast is equally precise: Yeung fires both pedals in tight, even alternation without burying the tone, which is the hardest part of extreme double bass to maintain across an extended blast section. For drummers studying extreme metal, "Bleed the Fifth" is an ideal entry point because it demonstrates the blast beat in a musical context: not as an isolated technique exercise, but as a compositional choice that the song genuinely needs. Learning to play Yeung's blast pattern requires building the technique from slow, clean single strokes at around 100 BPM and extending gradually — the body will find the speed, but only if the motion is already efficient and relaxed before tempo is added.2. Tim Yeung Profile — Drive the blast with clean single strokes between snare and ride, keeping each limb articulate rather than blurred Lock the kick in tight alternating double bass directly under the blast to add density without losing tone Keep snare stroke weight consistent across long blast passages — evenness is more important than maximum speed Relax the grip and shoulders throughout the blast; tension collapses speed and kills endurance Build the pattern from 100 BPM with clean single strokes before raising tempo, letting efficiency create speed
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