Psychedelic transition in Portlandia
The second full length from Portland’s Purification appeared as an offering from Santa on Christmas 2020 almost six months after their previous album. Following the excellent Perfect Doctrine, the most accessible release from this group of guys, Dwell… goes back to some of their weird antics. Under the name Thrown, two members played some sort of Carnivore infused noisy heavy/doom/speed and while we’re far from that sort of stuff, it’s a subtle departure from the first two Purification LPs.
Their debut was raw traditional doom, I liked it but not as much as the “refined” product that followed. Their third effort goes deeper into psychedelia, it’s almost ambient trad doom at times. The artwork is a pretty good indicator of how it sounds, acid induced psych doom with a sort of religious, divine feel. The two longest tracks (about half the length of the album) start and end the album with drawn out, mournful but atmospheric riffs. The vocals are strong when present, ominous and clean but with a secluded monk approach. Overall, it’s more restrained than their previous material but it’s moodier and shows another side of the band, one where they’re confident in their ability to create landscapes of sounds delving beyond the metal realm.
Speaking of exploring new areas, the original material includes two instrumentals and it’s quite hypnotic and has a desert drone mood to it, not unlike Earth’s western albums like The Bees Made Honey in the Lion's Skull. “Ar Soudarded Zo Gwisket e Ruz” is five minutes but could had been extended to ten or fifteen with ease while “Bombfog” is a short ambient, film music-ish introduction to the last metal track of the record.
I must admit that I’m a bit scared of the pace they’ve been releasing their music, one album every six months or so is a bit much. They have one coming up in two weeks already. Ultimately, I can’t complain because it’s all been very good but I don’t want them to become something like Haunt/Beastmaker and spreading their sauce too thinly. Still, this is kind of a glorified extended play turned into a full length. There’s two covers, a well rendered one of the obscure NWOBHM classic “Rainbow Warrior” and one from David Benson, a Christian doom nobody. They’re both pretty interesting picks, thanks for not covering Sabbath or Candlemass, dudes.
Yeah so pretty moody, atmospheric quasi ambient traditional doom metal is what you’re getting here. It’s diverse, well written and sends love letters to many different bands and subgenres. It’s very much an album between two albums but there’s still a lot of rewards to be found here.
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