RESIN TOMB – CEREBRAL PURGATORY

(Andy Synn kicks off the new year in style with down-under death-dealers Resin Tomb)

Almost exactly twelve months ago my first review of 2023 was for the debut album by an Australian band (whose previous EP had already impressed me) which I declared the first truly great Death Metal record of the year.

And while they say (quite incorrectly, as it turns out) that lightning never strikes twice and that history never repeats… here we are again in precisely the same situation.

Of course, the details may be slightly different – while Ashen‘s first full-length provided a stellar showcase of a more “pure”, riff-driven Death Metal sound similar to the likes of Bæst and Blood Red Throne, Resin Tomb‘s debut album features a more dissonantly aggressive, grind-influenced approach that sits somewhere between Wake and Vermin Womb, for example – but the circumstances are strangely similar.

Hopefully, however, that doesn’t mean that Cerebral Purgatory will end up in quite the same position as Ritual of Ash (which ended up being woefully underappreciated, especially when compared to some of the far inferior albums which received way more attention and acclaim), as it really is an impressive step up for a band who are already well on their way towards harnessing their full, phenomenal potential.

Clocking in at just under twenty-nine minutes – yet possessing such an unrelenting, unyielding ferocity that anything more than that would, perhaps, feel like too much to take in – it’s an album whose all-killer, no filler approach means that there’s no superfluous fat or wasted space to be found anywhere, just eight in-your-face tracks of lean, mean muscle and adrenaline-spiking extremity.

And whilst that makes it slightly more difficult to pick out specific highlights for additional praise (though, I must admit, the absolutely massive title-track is a personal favourite) it also frees me up to talk more about the record in its totality, especially the way it juxtaposes the stripped-down savagery of Grindcore with the more expansive and atmospheric approach of Dissonant Death Metal in a way which makes each and every killer cut seem that much bigger, that much bolder, than their concise, compressed run-time might indicate.

There’s also much to be said about the way in which the quintet use dissonance, employing it in a way that feels almost – for want of a better word – melodic in nature, without diluting or diminishing the violent intensity of their sound (just take a listen to the already-available “Human Confetti” for a taste of just how eerily infections, borderline “blackened”, the music on Cerebral Purgatory can be) while, at the same time, adopting a truly vicious, visceral vocal approach (drawing more from Grind than Death Metal) which grounds the album firmly in the blood and guts of our shared human horror.

All of these elements (and more) are on display in the three tracks the band have released so far – churning opener “Dysphoria”, the aforementioned “Human Confetti”, and the nerve-jangling, bone-jarring contortions of “Purge Fluid” – but there are also aspects of their sound which you won’t get to hear, not fully anyway, until the final release of the album (Jan 19 on Transcending Obscurity), such as the colossal, climactic grooves of “Scalded” or the asphyxiating atmosphere of claustrophobic closer “Putrescence” (which wouldn’t have sounded entirely out of place on Devouring Ruin).

You won’t have to wait too much longer, however, to find out for yourselves whether I’m telling the truth – a little over two weeks is all – so mark my words, and mark your calendars… Cerebral Purgatory is one of the best debut albums I’ve heard so far this year and, when the final reckoning is made, will no doubt end up being one of the best Death Metal albums of 2024.