Amongst metal fans, there are a lot of people listening to different kinds of music. Some worship immortal classical masterpieces, like Swan Lake or Peer Gynt, whereas others go wild over all types of rock music. A young Welsh outfit called Lethargy is going to make an appeal to those in the latter category and particularly to those into such bands as Soundgarden, Alice In Chains, Screaming Trees, Stone Temple Pilots, Big Country and the likes. However, there is still one principal distinction placing Lethargy into a bit detached niche: in contrast to the aforementioned groups, they are much more diverse and show lots of styles and influences at a time, from 70’s Hard Rock to 90’s Grunge to present-day Stoner and Modern Metal.

Being the band’s sophomore album (and the debut for Powerage Records), Purification doesn’t at all sound like a creation of novices. Instead it demonstrates a full-grown act with a thorough mastery and enough potential to surprise even the most seasoned public. This is pretty justified as the guys have been playing together since their schooldays. The Classic Rock magazine has already proclaimed Lethargy “the next great rock band” and it is not far from truth I must say. Although there’s hardly anything unheard before on Purification, it sees a band willing to stay off the beaten path and introduce something a bit different into the chosen style.

The songs vary in pace and heaviness from ponderous half-bluesy numbers with thick highly amplified guitar tone to impressive rockers with all sorts of distortion and unexpectedly changing tempos to highly emotive and melodic balladesque pieces with dreamy strings, abstracted solos and beautiful vocal harmonies. The song structures are not monotonous or too simple and employ different rhythmical switches and breaks to warrant this disc a repeated listen from time to time. The solos by Andy Hunt are interesting and inventive. So is the spectacular work of bassist Marc T. Jones, who is more than up to the task of making his instrument far more conspicuous than in other bands of this ilk. Vocalist Phil Humphreys also keeps his end up managing to sound like Chris Cornell (Soundgarden, Audioslave) and Harry Hess (Harem Scarem) simultaneously.

Even though it wasn’t of much interest to me in the beginning I gradually took to most of the songs while writing this review. Moreover, such pieces as “Innocence Serene”, “A Lost Adoration”, “I See Man’s End In His Construction”, “Inertia” and awesome title track are nothing short of excellence and can easily rival any known hits in this sub-genre. If these Welshmen go on at that rate they will make Classic Rock’s prognosis come true in no time at all.

[Visit the band's website]

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