Purgation

Review originally published at http://www.teethofthedivine.com by Erik Thomas

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 Johnny Burgan 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.