Allegiance

As Blood Runs Black is a deathcore band whose sounds a lot like The Black Dahlia Murder on their debut Allegiance. Allegiance is very similar in style to BDM except for the usage of metalcore breakdowns and a more melodic edge. Allegiance is far from original fortunately the album is so well played and entertaining that I can overlook its unoriginality. Like BDM As Blood Runs Black focuses more on the death metal side of deathcore than the black metal side.

Allegiance is mainly made up of fast-tempo finger tapped riffs, leads, very melodic solos, and breakdowns. Vocals are typical for deathcore featuring high pitch black metal rasps and low grunted death metal vocals. The songs themselves are short and to the point never breaking the five minute mark. Ever song fits well together except for the all acoustic instrumental Pouring Reign which is used as an interlude between the first and second half of the album. Blastbeats are used throughout and add to the speed of the album.

The band’s performance is excellent showcasing a talent for writing great catchy songs. The vocals as said above are the norm and fortunately clean or spoken word vocals are not present. The two guitarists invent some great leads, riffs, and solos using them effectively throughout. The drumming is superb blast beating away and using a lot of double kick bass that is extremely fast and fills when appropriate. An example of the fast double bass is on the second half of My Fears Have Become Phobias when the drummer unleashes one of the fastest double kick bass parts I have ever heard. The bass is completely inaudible throughout except on the breakdowns.

A few problems occur on Allegiance fortunately they are few and far between. The acoustic instrumental Pouring Reign is pretty useless and is the only song that does not fit on the album. Allegiance has way too many breakdowns which mostly just ramble on and on serving no purpose except for bashing your brains in. Some of the songs have similar intro riffs though it is rare. Finally the intro song could have been added to In Dying Days since it is so short.

Allegiance is an excellent place to start for anyone interested in deathcore and it will be very hard for As Blood Runs Black to top this album in the future. Best songs are In Dying Days, My Fears Have Become Phobias, Hester Prynne, The Brighter Side of Suffering, and Legends Never Die. I recommend Allegiance to any fan of deathcore and The Black Dahlia Murder.

-2 points Pouring Reign doesn’t fit on this album
-2 points similar intro riffs on a few songs
-2 points breakdowns are used badly and are too present
-2 points As Blood Runs Black needs to distance their style more from The Black Dahlia Murder