Facedown Records is quickly becoming the dominant Christian metal label, surpassing Solid State, with solid release from the likes of Seventh Star, Sleeping Giant, Inked In Blood, Impending Doom, Means, War of Ages and now Tennessse’s A Plea For Purging, who on their debut full length deliver arguably the second best metalcore record I’ve heard this year behind Life In Your Way’s Waking Giant’s.

Take the arpeggio heavy likes of The Human Abstract, The Demonstration or even Between the Buried and Me but remove any commercial/emo/pop/clean/experimental influences and replace it with a The Showdown styled (lyrically and musically) form of high octane Unearth worship and you have A Plea For Purging, a soaring, solo filled foray into shredding heavy metal inspired metalcore free from the usual Christian interludes and tangents-just pure rocking, air guitar spewing metal with as much face melting solo work than Dragonforce.

Guitarists Blake Martin and Lyle Paschal pretty much noodle and twiddle their way through each song with barely any breakdowns while vocalist Atkins delivers the requisite mid range growls and screams free from clean, salvation seeking crooning and the rthmn section gallops forcefully in the background; A Critique of Mind and Thought just rocks from start to finish. From the opening lumber of Sons of Vipers, How Will You Escape the Judgment of Hell?”, through the furiously catchy canter of “While the Sparrow Sleeps”, arpeggio heaven of standout track “Resurrection of the Beast” (one of my favorite songs of the year thus far), to the rousing chorus of “Everything and Nothing” A Critique of Mind and Thought delivers crisp confident and sumptuous metalcore without carrying overly into the dramatic ubiquitous melodies of say Life In Your Way, Rosesdead or Misery Signals.

Damn good stuff from Facedown and better than the new Inked In Blood, so this is a must have for God fearing metal fans and metalcore fans alike.

[Visit the band's website]

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