Album Reviews : Boris The Blade – Tides of Damnation

Melbourne’s newest death metal band Boris the Blade has had a pretty big couple of months, without even playing their first show yet. They recorded their debut EP Tides of Damnation at RTD Studios as a four piece, and a day before they were set to release it, they had to push the date back due to label interest from Siege of Amida Records in the UK. The day of the release with SoA, Roman Koester (ex. The Red Shore) was announced as second guitarist, and the EP became #1 on the iTunes metal album charts, storming above Five Finger Death Punch, Suicide Silence, Bullet for My Valentine, even Alice Cooper!

After giving the EP a listen, I can see what all the hype about Boris the Blade had been, because it is 21 minutes of pure technical death metal assault. Critics will straight up judge it as another dreaded death core band, but its way better than what I expected it to be before I heard it, and it definitely deserves a chance. Here’s a rundown on the 6 songs of the EP.

Like Wolves – The opener of the album, most people who have already heard of this band will have heard this song. Straight away the band shows the technical, punishing sound to expect throughout the album. CJ McMahon (Thy Art is Murder) delivers a powerful verse to bring the song to its top level. The ending of the song is unfortunately put off by poor gang vocals to back up the ungodly growls that singer Sharpy lays down. 9/10

A Vulgate Prophet – Continues the intensity shown from the last song with a shitload of ferocity, especially in the vocals. Has a fair bit of Whitechapel influence and some aggressive drumming. 9/10

For the Wretched – Opens with mid-tempo leads that give you the feeling of tearing heads, and shows a few more breakdowns than the rest of the songs on this album (excluding the next song). Heading into just over three and a half minutes of the song, one of the heaviest, bulldozing breakdowns I have ever heard pounded my ears. 9/10

Wastelands – A short interlude which continues the run of breakdowns shown from the end of the last song. It’s very brutal, but nothing special. 8/10

Your Last Breath – Could be the heaviest song on the album, with some speedy double kicking and a ruthless growl to kick the song into gear. Sharpy’s vocals sound best in this song, not only the main low gutturals and growls, but also the backing high screams to some parts in the song. A mid-length breakdown started with some short mono-effects kick in, but it doesn’t take too long to get back upto the speed shown at the start of the song. 9.5/10

Tides of Damnation – The title track, straight away opens with blastbeats and tapping licks to end riffs. The first half of the song is solid, and Kyson from Signal the Firing Squad lays down some vicious vocals heading into the main breakdown, but the mono-effected interlude and outro after a rather lengthy breakdown put me off the song a bit. A slightly disappointing end to an awesome debut release. 7/10

Overall rating – 8.5/10

Boris the Blade has shown great musicianship on a well-produced EP. I strongly recommend them to someone who loves technical metal with a good breakdown every now and again. Check out their very first shows coming late November/early December with heavyweights of new Australian music, such as Northlane, Sienna Skies, In Hearts Wake, and for their last show State of East London.

Band: Boris the Blade
Album: Tides of Damnation
Year: 2011
Genre: Technical Death Metal
Label: Siege of Amida Records (UK), RTD Records (Australia)
Origin: Melbourne, Australia
http://www.facebook.com/boristhebladeband