Allegiance

If there is one thing we know about deathcore, its that its chuggy. This more than anything else is the genre's one descriptive feature. So when you read in the title that this is chuggy keep in mind that I mean super chuggy and chock full of every deathcore cliche this side of Suicide Silence.

Its starts with a track simply titled 'Intro', and of course the first thing displayed here is a downtuned mid paced chug riff that carries on for perhaps 30 seconds before jumping into the first of many breakdowns. The breakdown fades into the next track which then fades into the track that follows it and so on and so forth. The band never really end a song, they just bridge together the outro and intro of the next track to create something of a loop. All the songs sound about the same with the same characteristic pseudo growls, double pedal drumming, chug riffs and breakdowns so it becomes, more so than usual, hard to tell really where one song ends and the next one begins. It goes on in a cycle pattern doing this until 'Pouring Rain' breaks the mold by adding a soft and melodic layer to the music for a brief stint of time before the cycle continues as if nothing had happened.

There are of course some differences between tracks, 'My Fears Have Become Phobias' utilizes some technical noodling about halfway through and some pretty clean gang shouts on its way out. Elements like these are occasionally strung through out some of the later tracks as well. The lack of variety soon catches up though, you get the feeling that you've already heard this riff before, or that a breakdown sounds exactly like the one 3 tracks ago. Really the album's highlight is 'My Fears Have Become Phobias', and even being the strongest song here its still not amazing, after this track is over it just seems like the same basic rough draft of a song that gets recycled a few times offering nothing of interest or bringing anything new to the table, it just keeps going and going until enough material has been recorded for it to be considered a full album.

So I wouldn't really recommend this album to anyone. I'm sure those who would enjoy it already have enjoyed it. I was hoping to see some mould breaking from this band as they came highly recommended but it seems to be just another mindless chugga chugga choo choo wagon. Pass.