EP Review: The Order of the Precious Blood – I No Longer Wish for Salvation

The Order of the Precious Blood – I No Longer Wish for Salvation
June 16th, 2023
Mathcore / Metalcore / Experimental Hardcore
Independently Released
St. John’s, Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada

Do you like spastic metalcore like The Dillinger Escape Plan? Do you like the catchy, hooky riffs of the Cancer Bats? Well then chances are you’ve just stumbled across a band that melds both of those styles together in a way seamlessly. The Order of the Precious Blood have emerged from the heavy music underground of St. John’s with one of the most creative guerilla marketing campaigns I’ve seen from there in recent memory, as well as a kickass EP to boot.

Across its six tracks and average runtime of about 15 minutes, I No Longer Wish for Salvation punishes the listener with sick riff after sick riff, mind-melting complexity, and a vocal performance that oozes emotion. The songwriting on here, as mentioned before, combines the raucous and chaotic nature of mathcore with the catchiness of a group akin to Cancer Bats.

There’s a level of bluesiness and melancholy present here, especially on a track like “X You Out”, that is heavily reminiscent of that group, yet its combined with drumming and switches into guitar work that are much more chaotic than anything I’ve ever heard those Winnipegers do. When Precious Blood describes themselves as ‘experimental hardcore’ I totally get it. Less understood is the ‘blackened hardcore’ moniker, as I don’t really pick up any influences from black metal while listening to this.

This band is of course composed of some fine folks who have been around in the St. John’s metal and punk scene for a hot minute. From vocalist Paul Brake, of whom Precious Blood ultimately seems to be the spiritual successor to his ill fated metalcore project WasteCase which was unfortunately put to bed a few years back (though perhaps for the better), to Ben Chapman-Smith (bass) and Cameron Legge (guitar) of Slowpoke, to Barry O’Keefe (guitar) and Adam Hearn (drums) of long-standing metalcore outfit Release the Hounds. These are some heavy hitters here, and thus it’s not shocking that the ultimate result of this meeting of the minds has resulted in what is in this reviewers opinion the best EP to come out of St. John’s so far this year.

Aside from the strength and complexity of the songwriting here, the production is also incredible. Engineered by the increasingly prolific Krisjan Leslie at Lab of Chaos Studios, this thing sounds extremely professional. Precious Blood have come out of the gate swinging with a debut offering that sounds like something you’d hear by an already established group, not an artist that for all intents and purposes is still a local band. Leslie did an incredible job producing this thing, and the band did an excellent job nailing every single part on it.

I’m downright flabbergasted by the quality of this EP. I’ve come back to it time and time again. It’s got a distinct sound, it’s got variety, it’s got great songwriting, and top of the line production. If this is what The Order of the Precious Blood is starting out with then consider me a devout follower of the cult. I can’t wait to hear what these guys produce next. If you haven’t listened to this EP yet, do yourself a favour and get on that.

Final Verdict: 5/5
Flawless

Favourite Tracks:
“Bastard! Rejoice!”
“X You Out”
“Divine Light”

~ Akhenaten