Allegiance

This album kicks off with an intro named simply 'Intro', which packs a mighty punch and leaves you looking forward to what you forsee as a great album, only to discover it's actually quite boring.

In Dying Days is an average generic song, followed by My Fears Have Become Phobias, which is probably the best song on the album, excluding the intro.

After another generic song later, you're getting bored, so the acoustic/clean song Pouring Reign is a welcome change. I'd have to put that up there with My Fears Have Become Phobias.

But after that oasis, the generic mediocre songs continue. All of the songs that you hear now sound the exact same, and it tires you out to the point that you're damn bored. But you're determined to finish the album, so you toil on, and 5 generic songs later it's over. Might put that over on the shelf there to collect dust for a while.

So, I've been using the word 'generic' alot ... and what do I mean by it? Well, let's do what As Blood Runs Black do all the time, and break it down.

The guitars are your standard Black Dahlia Murder ripoffs (keeping in mind they ripped off most of their stuff from another band too): natural minor scale riff, breakdown, natural minor scale riff. None of the riffs distinguish themselves from the others; however, in As Blood Runs Black's favour, despite the lack of creativity and unoriginality of the riffs, most of them are at least half-decent, and the breakdowns are pretty original (well, as original as a breakdown can possibly be, so that doesn't say too much).

The bass is good I guess, and it's solid, which is necessary to achieve the sound they're going for.

The drums are pretty alright, the drummer demonstrating his speed in My Fears Have Become Phobias with some scarily fast double bassing. Not overly creative drumming overall, but it fits the music well.

The vocals are another thing they rip off from The Black Dahlia Murder, alternating between a high growl/screech and a low growl. Fine I guess, but I must say I quite like the lyrics.

So there you have it, a solid yet boring album. Don't get it unless you really like The Black Dahlia Murder, or are a devoted Metalcore fan.