Produced by Simon Bailey and Daniel Ford
Released: 2008
Black Asylum has been one of the busiest metal bands on the Sydney scene for a few years now, carving out a name for themselves as a reliable support band for almost any heavy act that hits town. The band's two previous demos highlighted the thrash aspect of their sound, but their debut album release paints them as considerably more diverse. Diversity can have its downside of course, and in Black Asylum's case it's that they seem to try to cover too much and not really establish themselves in any one particular style.
"Beg for Mercy" opens proceedings pretty well with a nice combination of classic thrash and classic metal with "This Time We Rise" continuing in the thrash vein. After this the band begins a somewhat wayward excursion through various guises that often works but sometimes doesn't. On "Victims of the Fall" they sound rather like Daysend, which would be fine if Daysend didn't already sound like that and "Bleeding Away" is like a leftover from The Haunted's The Dead Eye. The lead guitars tear through "My War" and "Black Insanity" features a nice fusion of melodic thrash and groove, which I must say this band does very well. Other songs exhibit influences from metalcore and still others display some melodic death metal tendencies. All is good, but Black Asylum needs to decide what sort of metal band they want to be, and stick to it. There's nothing wrong with throwing in a few outside elements here and there, but have too many and you leave yourself at risk of trying to be everything to everyone.
Truths of the Blood isn't a bad album, but it doesn't come off as particularly cohesive. It's as if the band threw on every decent song they've ever written instead of choosing eight or so that best illustrate their main style. That said, there's far worse you could do than check these guys out, especially if they're playing somewhere near you.
- Beg for Mercy
- This Time We Rise
- Victims of the Fall
- Bleeding Away
- 12 Gauge Judas
- My War
- Dawn of No Difference
- The Shallow Eye
- ...Unspoken
- Black Insanity
- Dead to the World
