A Plea For Purging - The Marriage Of Heaven And Hell

Published Tuesday 31st August 2010
A Plea For Purging - The Marriage Of Heaven And Hell
A Plea For Purging - The Marriage Of Heaven And Hell

STYLE: Hard Music
RATING 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8
OUR PRODUCT CODE: 95137-16826
LABEL: Facedown FCD093
FORMAT: CD Album
ITEMS: 1

Reviewed by Peter John Willoughby

One glance at the cover art instantly tells you that this release is going to be really dark. A Plea For Purging has been around Nashville since 2004 and has never catered for the faint hearted. The line-up is Aaron Eckermann (drums), John Wand (bass), Tyler Wilson (guitar), Blake Martin (guitar) and Andy Atkins (vocals). Their style is still metalcore, but with brutal riffing verging on Meshuggah territory. The major inspiration behind this set is the book The Marriage Of Heaven And Hell by the English poet, William Blake, which was written in the same style as Biblical books of prophecy. It expressed Blake's own personal revolutionary beliefs and contains his Proverbs Of Hell. This is essentially a 40 minute concept album about wolves in sheep's clothing. "The Eternal Female" launches with a hellfire and brimstone preacher before the crushing riffs arrive. To say the least, the lyrics are hard hitting eg "Self-righteous fascist, you chase the sun/Glory belongs to no man/Crooked church, you sell the Son/Thieves deserve to have no hands/Our prisons were built with the stones of law/Whore houses are built with the bricks of religion". Having survived that, we are then exposed to the band's fastest track "Sick Silent America" with Mr Atkins spewing out more vitriol. After all the sledgehammer guitar, there is the melodic "The Jealous Wings" with clear vocals throughout. But don't let that fool you as the final track "The New Born Wonder" returns to unsettle you with more go-for-the-throat lyrics ("I'm weak and I'm tired/And I want this fighting in my head to stop/They say hang it up young man/They say hate only leaves you cold and alone/I'm too jaded to care but too scared to run/I let my apathy get the best of me/Well Jesus if you can heal/I have the ears to hear"). Near the end of the track the hellfire preacher reappears and in the dying seconds a girl's voice announces "Your judgment is coming".

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