| Reviews for Crimson Thorn's Purification |
| Lack of compassion - 90% |
| Written by Kalelfromkrypton
on November 4th, 2009
|
| Lack of compassion are the only words I can think when describing the metal onslaught that is Purification, lack of compassion to our ears, to our neck, to our peaceful existence. This is brutality for God’s (literally) sake! Once again we have a merciless session of grind core the way it is supposed to be played. This is not death metal or brutal death as some would say, since grind core was born being a heavier version of death metal and this is indeed, heavier than death metal but not noise or any other shitty corporal-forensic-filth lyrics focused. ‘Lack of compassion’ opens the album and since the intro you think this will rip your heart out. The bass sound is awesome and the sharp tones of the guitars complement the killer and brutal sound. There are some slow parts which give path to the deep vocals and again this is, for me, one of the best grind core vocalists to ever face of the Earth. ‘Humbled’ follows and hey, we got something new here, they incorporated keyboards following the music. They sound pretty cool and definitely give the music a creepier and richer atmosphere. In this case more black-ished metal vocals are used and some acoustic guitars here and there. The bass sound has been increased a lot on ‘Sarcastic Deviation’ and this one is more groove-rhythm based. The multilayered vocals with even deeper barking and growling make the voices stand up and make the songs creepier, take the low growls from ‘Withered’ for instance and you know what I mean. ‘Neighbor’ is another different track much mid tempo with some fast parts but the use of the keyboards again highlights the song. ‘Narrow’ has the deepest and lowest vocals from the entire album and some chants (yes doom-alike chants in a grind core album) as well as some spoken parts at the end. I like them a lot since I find textures and variety and not pure blast beats and beyond the grave vocals all over, not to mention that this song is really slow (for grind core standards) and then towards the end it changes tempo and speed metal riffs come up. Another thing that it is worth mentioning is the fact that there are guitar solos, which is or was very rare in these albums. There are a few and they are very rhythmic but fit the music well. The majority of songs on the second half are slow/mid tempo very groovy with fast parts and not as relentless as Dissection’s. The only song I would say I kind of dislike is ‘Meaningless’. I don’t like it mainly because of the vocalization, which sounds more like hardcore than grind core or death metal. There is a lot of variety in this album, as opposed to Dissection, which was fairly more brutal from start to finish but this one is only a little behind on speed and sheer heaviness. So far ‘Purification’ one is my favorite of all of them despite some production and sound mixing problems and only one boring song, which take away only 10 points from being a total master piece, thus the 90. If this could’ve had the production like Dissection, this would totally shred your soul (literally and metaphorically). The drums sound too down in the mix and the overall sound is definitely not clean but the bass gained predominance. That is just a minor flaw because other than that all the songs are cool, very wise song-writing and the lyrics are 100% Christian focused so if that bothers you, you better stay away, I on the other hand find them absolutely interesting. Did you like ‘Unearthed’ and ‘Dissection’? And…add to the mix some keyboards, chants, spoken parts, rhythm sections, black metal vocals as well then you have an awesome grind core recording which is almost perfect being not for the production and sound flaws. |