Adding to Metal Blade’s fine 2008 death metal releases like Hail of Bullets, Hate Eternal, Brain Drill and The Rotted comes this low key artwork and logo clad, out of nowhere, debut release from the UK’s Trigger the Bloodshed.
While the likes of Mithras, Spearhead, Man Must Die, Detrimentium and Sarpanitum have slowly exhumed the corpse of British death metal, Bristol’s Trigger the Bloodshed have violently extracted the corpse from the ground, kicking and screaming in a ferocious onslaught of top notch brutal, technical death metal that sounds as good as anything the Swedes or Yanks have kicked out of late.
At 17 songs, 36 minutes, the duration and length of the songs and album points to grindcore brevity, as many of the songs range from a minute to three minutes, but in truth, every single one of the short sharp tracks (except for classic interludes “The Defiled”, “Hollow” and “Domicile”) pack enough punch, voracity and prowess to keep you listening for every blast beat and well placed lurch (i.e. “Laceration”, the slightly deathcore -ish “Lovers” and superb “Rebirth”).
The highlight is drummer Max Blunos, who is just monstrous behind the kit, almost reaching Brain Drill/Origin like levels of percussive machine gunnery (i.e. “Merciless Ignorance”, “Impregnable Miscreation”, “Wretched Betrayal”, “Retribution”, “Whited Sepulcher”) without the flashy fills while the rest of the band are workman like in their blasting, ripping delivery. Vocalist Charlie Holmes has a standard, feral growl and scream, nothing spectacular, but serviceable and the guitars of Rob Purnell and Martyn Evans slice and dice with a razor sharp tone that while hardly instantly identifiable as ‘their’ sound, delivers a punchy, clean assault.
In all, Purgation is a very good death metal release, compounded by its British origins that shows even more hope for revitalizing British death metal, and might be the most tight and brutal thing out of the UK since Napalm Death. Or Melanie B’s butthole.
Killer.
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good review ill be picking this bitch up soon.
on Aug 21st, 2008 at 12:31Indeed… this thing absolutely slays. Some of the fastest and most technical double bass work I have heard recently. VERY VERY good album.
on Aug 22nd, 2008 at 03:12i picked this sucker up the other day on the whim. ya know after listening to there other stuff it was kinda boring sounding but this disc just fuckin rips. crazy stuff there like a listenable brain drill. who’s melanie b?
on Aug 22nd, 2008 at 17:21Melanie B was the Black Spice Girl
on Aug 23rd, 2008 at 10:13This is just not doing it for me. The tracks on their myspace are almost indistinguishable from each other.
Also, Melanie B got ridiculously hot since being in Spice Girls.
on Aug 23rd, 2008 at 14:04this ain’t upto par with Spearhead, Adorior or even Mithras but it certainly is worthy of some merit. While not sounding directly like them this reminds me of some more recent Neurotic/Willowtip releases like Corpus Mortale or Visceral Bleeding in that it succeeds on every level but effective songwriting and even there the band falls short ever so barely.
Thats likely a moot point considering how subjective good death metal songwriting is to different ears. The widest array of opinions on bands like Dismember, Cannibal Corpse, Bolt Thrower and especially Hate Eternal always seems to be that they are the most boring shit ever put to tape or they exhibit masterful talent in crafting songs. Myself I’m a big fan of the above listed bands but find nothing of value in bands like Necrophagist or Origin. Others would express drastically different opinions I’m sure. Always the #1 issue with death metal it seems.
on Aug 26th, 2008 at 17:05