Review Summary: All in all, As Blood Runs Black show that they can create great music, yet their tendency to stick rather too close to the accepted conventions that make deathcore so popular (and indeed hated) means that they have little room to explore this potential.
As Blood Runs Black’s debut full length really is a tricky album to assess. On the one hand, there are a handful of extremely competent and adept moments that divulge a great deal of musicianship and creativity that betray the widely accepted notion that the band are merely deathcore by numbers. Yet on the other, there are a glut of bland and monotonous aspects that go along way to support this negative perception.
The saving grace of the outfit is undoubtedly drummer Hector ‘Leche’ De Santiago, who shows some astounding skill behind the kit. His performance here is invaluable in alleviating some of the insipid and downright lacklustre guitar work, as he constantly shifts patterns and injects some imaginative fills, suggesting new ambiences and making it seem that there is more going on in the song than there is in reality. Tracks such as ‘My Fears Have Become Phobias’ find Leche altering between cymbal led grooves to all out snare attacks, doing his best to develop a song which for the most part sticks to the usage of one or two quite colourless riffs throughout (this song also contains a blindingly fast double bass section during the closing breakdown). ‘Hester Prynne’ also finds him on excellent form, executing some impressive blast beats and again showing excellent double bass proficiency.
As I previously touched upon, the majority of the guitar playing is rather uninspired. The riffs which open ‘In Dying Days’ and ‘The Brighter Side Of Suffering’ display a melodic death metal influence that has resulted in some really sub At The Gates style writing that fails to both excite or impress, as unfortunately it has been done better by countless other outfits. Ironically, where the guitar playing most makes an impression on ’Allegiance’ is on the clean instrumental ’Pouring Rain’, which is a beautiful piece, full of delicately picked lines and interweaving bass that makes for a pleasant listen and a nice change of pace. There are also a number of truly affecting breakdowns on the album. One need look no further than about fifty seconds into the aforementioned ’Hester Prynne’, where an absolutely vicious section of rapid chugs and interlocking double bass erupts.
Vocalist Chris Blair turns in a run of the mill effort. His roar is certainly competent, yet his vocals remain staunchly in a mid range register, and this failure to venture and explore a more guttural or shrieking style once in a while makes for a very wearisome experience. There are moments where he is very effective, such as his cry of ’Bring the motherf***ing ruckus’ during the breakdown in ‘In Dying Days’, yet this cannot save his performance from being merely a standard metal affair.
All in all, As Blood Runs Black show that they can create great music, yet their tendency to stick rather too close to the accepted conventions that make deathcore so popular (and indeed hated) means that they have little room to explore this potential. With a follow up record four years in the making, lets hope that the band have taken this time to survey the aspects that work in ‘Allegiance’, and learned from a wider pool of influences in order to create something that can be called exciting and original, both things that unfortunately ‘Allegiance’ is not.
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