Album Review: Black Breath – Sentenced To Life [8 out of 10]

By Andrew Bansal

After a killer debut full-length release and a slew of impressive live performances, Seattle-based band Black Breath are now ready to unleash their sophomore album “Sentenced To Life”, and just like its predecessor, this is yet another punishing, relentless onslaught that will not only pulverize the listener’s ears, but will tear venues apart when played live.

Based on a few listens, it’s clear to me that they’ve mostly done away with the bluesy rock ‘n roll element they incorporated into “Heavy Breathing”, and this time it’s straight up brutality from start to finish. They’ve also progressed as songwriters to such a degree that they’re now able to put their point across in a mere 32 minutes of raw, unbridled intensity. It’s essentially a thrash-influenced hardcore album that’s very heavy on distortion and doesn’t have much lead guitar work involved.

Even the clean guitar you hear on some of the tunes is extremely dark and evil, typical of something you’d expect from a European extreme metal band, and there’s hardly any of the bluesy Sabbath-esque flavor or the rock ‘n roll Motorhead-like touch to it all. The final track “Obey” is the only one that involves bluesy riffs and twin guitar harmonizing, which is a real delight to hear. It’s easily my favorite track on the album, but besides that I’m also digging “Home Of The Grave” and “Endless Corpse”. As for the other tunes on here, they’ll definitely prove to be great additions to Black Breath’s live show, specially “Mother Abyss”.

In case you couldn’t tell based on what you’ve read so far, I would prefer Black Breath to infuse rock ‘n roll into their brand of hardcore, and I’m not particularly thrilled about the fact that they haven’t done so on this album. In my opinion, they have the ability to combine hardcore, blues and rock ‘n roll in a way that would separate them from the massive number of straight-up hardcore bands that are in existence today, and they showed glimpses of it on “Heavy Breathing”. But they’ve gone the other way on this album, making it more raw, aggressive and straightforward, thus ending up with a sound that’s no longer unique. This album is by no means bad, not by a long stretch, but they have it in them to release a better one in the future.

Having said that, I’m sure this album will grow on me, because there is plenty to like about it. For Black Breath supporters and hardcore fans, this is undoubtedly worth the purchase. The amazing cover artwork helps matters as well, and the prospect of holding a physical copy of it in hand is exciting in itself. All in all, Black Breath’s “Sentenced To Life” looks set to elevate the band’s stature among hardcore fans, and should enhance their already great reputation as a devastating live act.

Rating: 8/10

Record Label: Southern Lord
Release Date: March 27th 2012

Track Listing:
1. Feast of the Damned
2. Sentenced to Life
3. Forced Into Possession
4. Home of the Grave
5. Endless Corpse
6. Mother Abyss
7. Of Flesh
8. Doomed
9. The Flame
10.Obey

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