To Gaius! (For the Delivery of Agrippina)

Straight off, Paragon Impure remind the listener of Transilvanian Hunger-era Darkthrone: A raw, fuzzy production tying together simple tremolo riffs, blasting drums and raspy midrange vocals. This is by no means a bad thing. While a thousand weak clones may have degraded the formula into a sick joke on their interminable releases, when written with skill and passion the stock approach still works. This is very much the case here.

I've essentially summed up the albums sound already, but they do an effective job of adding in other elements to capture the listeners ear. Firstly, the adept use of voices beyond the standard rasps. The album sees vocalist/guitarist/bassist Noctiz utilising chants, spoken word sections, some rare throaty growls and samples from the infamous 1979 movie 'Caligula' alongside the main vocal assault, frequently layering two or more styles together for greater effect.

The drumming is also more varied than would be expected of a Transilvanian Hunger clone. It's still mostly blastbeats with the rare dash of frigid groove but the cymbal work is far more involved, though still far from technical. The structure of the song is where the greatest difference lies: The last two songs of the original EP stretch out to 8 and 10 minutes respectively, giving them far more time to breathe, for the riffs to snake forward into new and more atmospheric pattterns before the entire thing crashes to a halt amongst the (sampled) sounds of a roman execution-come-orgy.

It's the guitars wherein this album differs least from the archetype. Each and every riff would be perfectly at home on Darkthrones classic: minimalist, cold and harsh. In the hands of a less talented band, this would be a problem. However, Paragon Impure carry through with enough quality that I just don't care how cliché their strumming is.

Lyrically, this differs from the usual fare. As some might have deduced from the title, this is a concept album about the Roman Emperor Caligula. Each of the four songs continuing the tale of his life – from his youth to his ascension at the death of Tiberius, his downward spiral into cruel tyranny and finally his murder by the Praetorian Guard. Few would be able to grasp it without a lyric sheet, but it's exceedingly well constructed overall, adding to the albums depth.

Unfortunately, the re-release version has one weakness: It's packaged with rerecorded versions of the two songs from their first EP 'In Commemoration Of Ish Kerioth', which was in much the same style. The bonus tracks aren't bad songs but they're not up to the quality of the previous offering (mostly due to their grating guitar solos that would be far more fitting in a thrash album) and are obviously from a different recording session – the production is cleaner, perhaps a touch too clean for the music it contains. Under normal circumstances I wouldn't be annoyed by their inclusion but tacking them onto the end robs the album of its power and the intense final note To Gaius! would otherwise end on