Band:	As Blood Runs Black
Album:	Allegiance
Style:	Deathcore
Release date:	June 2006

01. Intro
02. In Dying Days
03. My Fears Have Become Phobias
04. Hester Prynne
05. Pouring Reign
06. The Brighter Side Of Suffering
07. The Beautiful Mistake
08. Strife (Chug Chug)
09. Beneath The Surface
10. Legends Never Die

As one of the guiding lights in the then budding deathcore genre, As Blood Runs Black's debut album Allegiance has cemented its place in history, with it serving as one of the more prominent records at a crucial juncture. With all that being the originator entails, it is an album that is not as refined or honed as other bands who would take the blueprint of Allegiance and run with it.

It would be prescient to distinguish between originality and making something new; while the band were trailblazers in the deathcore scene, their fusion of melodic death metal and breakdowns is basically taking two separate band's works and fusing them together. The mix may be original but it is very derivative of the bands they are combining. This is something that isn't unusual in much modern music, but usually it isn't something that sticks out like the sore thumb it is here.

Allegiance can best be described as melodic death metal with breakdowns really; while the growled vocals and chugging guitars would go on to become traits in deathcore, here, it is the breakdowns that would separate As Blood Runs Black from melodic death metal bands like Darkest Hour. Strip the bands of much of their breakdowns and you would have The Black Dahlia Murder.

Allegiance is a good album despite its flaws, one that is worth listening to, to see how the genre evolved over time. Songs like "All My Fears Have Become Phobias", "A Beautiful Mistake" and "In Dying Days", however. are worth listening to for their quality rather than as some history lesson. It's because of tracks like these that the band came to serve as the blueprint of those who came after them.

The band are solid on their instruments, if not the most original anyway. The guitar work is solid but is mostly At The Gates riffs with a few tweaks; it's an enjoyable listen but very reminiscent of said Swedish band. Blair's vocals fit the music well, though he himself does little to distinguish himself; his growls are very generic but again they work well with what they are put on top of.

Where As Blood Runs Black do fall short is in the breakdown department; they're often just dropped in at random during the songs and break up the flow of the music rather than being segued into. "Hester Prynne" is a good example of this; no one expects the Spanish inquisition, nor the breakdown when it comes. It wouldn't be so bad, but the breakdowns are quite boring as well; their addition to this type of music was new but the breakdowns they're playing are old.

It is a shame that once again those who open the door are often left out in the cold as other swarms through; Allegiance is the only real record of note from As Blood Runs Black, and even with them as a going concern, they're pretty much consigned to history. Worth a piece of your time if you want to hear some early deathcore before a scene evolved around it; it's not the band's fault for what it would spawn.