Review Summary: In as quickly as they came out but not without leaving a mark.
It’s interesting when a band begins there career so strong with a goal to make a solid osdm album then decides to leave the scene. While there could numerous reasons, when done well, they have the opportunity to leave a stain or dent if you will, in the mark of time. Finnish death metal band Purtenance formed in 1990 and split up in 1992. During this small respective period they managed to release two demos and once solid LP. The LP release of “Member of Immortal Damnation” is a very important release in the death metal genre due to its high level of versatile songs. Some tracks have doom like qualities, classical instrumental cleans, and others which take up most of the album are straight up death metal; even reaching more technical levels that Finnish artist’s are known for.
The production opens up quite nicely with a highly laced reverb-esq atmosphere that repeats arpreggiated dark guitar chords until only after a minutes time the doom like track “Black Vision” softly lays the first taste of crusty guitar distortion on your ears. This slow transition really gives off a progressive vibe until the more common heavy death metal enters in the middle of the same track coupled by double bass blast’s and catchy drum fills. From the moment on pure death metal is the name of the game. The vocals are low and very guttural. They add perfect balance to the crusty guitars and audible bass lines, usually harmonizing on comfortable tempo levels.
A bit of classical instrumetalization is thrown in around the albums middle point with “Lacus Somniorum” which gives a bit of a breather to the death metal chaos but also adds a mild flavor of serenity. “In the Misty Morning” is a very techy and catchy track which starts with some wonderful alternate riffing styles with powerful palm muted stops. The level of technicality can be likened to Gorguts first LP “Considered Dead”. This same track plays with various tempo changes which are all very cohesive.
“Member of Immortal Damnation” is no groundbreaking death metal but it does provide really solid Finnish material which can and should appreciate by any love of osdm.
