Trigger The Bloodshed
Purgation

October 2008
Released: 2008, Metal Blade Records
Rating: 4.0/5
Reviewer: Lord of the Wasteland

Joining Brain Drill’s APOCALYPTIC FEASTING as the heaviest album I’ve heard in 2008 comes PURGATION, the debut from U.K. brutal death/grind merchants, Trigger The Bloodshed. Owing plenty to the unrelenting speed and dexterity of fellow countrymen Napalm Death, Trigger The Bloodshed impose a firm stamp on this year’s death metal scene and, thankfully, bypass the deathcore toilet that is spilling over with turds. This is pure, unrefined, old-school death metal that grinds and lurches through seventeen tracks in a mere 37 minutes. Drummer Max Blunos is inhumanly fast and the razor-sharp leads of Rob Purnell bristle with technicality and flair. Charlie Holmes comes from the school of Barney Greenway, early Chris Barnes and Frank Mullen alternating between throat-ravaging roars and paint-peeling screams that fit the material nicely. PURGATION isn’t breaking any new ground stylistically but this is an ass-kicking, neck-wrecking half hour that is satisfyingly well spent when all is said and done.



Not content with bludgeoning the listener for the full program, PURGATION adds in a few well-placed ambient pieces that provide a breather—albeit a brief one—between the pummeling tracks that tend to run into each other and bleed together a little too much. The drum kit savagery perpetuated by Max Blunos on tracks like “The Abortive Unbecoming” and the brilliant “Rebirth” really is something to be heard. At the same time, 37 minutes of relentless blasting can grow tiresome so these little interludes help break up the monotony. Charlie Holmes screams, growls and gurgles his way through the extraordinarily brutal and twisted “Lovers” which also features some cool panning guitar effects. On “A Perfect Casket” (with vocal help from Cradle of Filth’s Sarah Jezebel Deva), the sickening riffs pair up with Blunos’ militaristic drumming and Holmes’ throaty roars to craft an instant death metal classic. The lurching groove of “Mortuary Walls” and “Retribution” hit like a brick to the back of the head and latter’s death metal breakdown is enough to crumble walls.



The problem with an album like PURGATION is that it can be viewed as derivative and redundant due to the extremity of the music. Yes, there are some melodic hooks here and there but this is pretty brutal stuff that will appeal to metalheads seeking out the fastest, heaviest and most brutal death metal imaginable. Fans of Origin, Brain Drill and Suffocation will lap this up like a kitten does milk, so the faint of heart and lightweight metal fans who prefer their death with the –core tag attached better look elsewhere because this is the real deal right here.



KILLER KUTS: “Merciless Ignorance,” “Rebirth,” “Lovers,” “Mortuary Walls,” “Retribution,” “The Abortive Becoming,” “A Perfect Casket”