Review Summary: I saw this album on YouTube. I listened to about five minutes and decided I wanted it. I was browsing through a used CD store and found this on sale for $8, and just had to have it.
What makes the slam/brutal death metal a subgenre worth listening to? Slam is meant for those who like to mosh and be aggressive. Slam cuts all the crap that all the other bands give out. Pathology’s “The Time of Great Purification” does that just as it should be. Although this album is not completely ground breaking, it does deserve its praises. If you are a slam CD collector this album is worth the time it takes to track down slam CDs. It is a beautiful CD in terms of artwork, and it’s content is really well done.
Jonathan Huber’s vocals are guttural. They are disgusting. They are everything you need to be when you front a slam band. He has a wide range that can go from sounding like a huge stone door creaking open and dragging against the floor, to angry low growls. Huber makes a great use of his vocal range in this CD, along with most of Pathology’s other CDs. The lyrics (Although most can’t understand them) touch a lot on conspiracy, like a lot of slam bands do. It was nice to read the lyrics and not just read about gore and torture like most slam bands, old school or new.
I feel like this CD was really well done and fit the title of slam metal. That being said, I did find a problem with it. By track five I was already tired of it. The Time Of Great Purification is a wonderful album no doubt, but it gets rather repetitive. That’s the way most slam bands are. There are some killer riffs in most (if not all) of the songs, but I just want to hear something different. Slam is a hard genre when it comes to this. For the most part most bands have different sounds (Devourment sounds nothing like Begging For Incest, or Guttural Slug sounds nothing like Pathology) which is fantastic and gives us all something to listen to, but it gets hard to tell sometimes when a new track is playing or not. The blast beats and drumming all together could have a new pattern every now and then, that could help keep my interest. With a lot of CDs I have listened to, blast beats have either pulled me in or pushed me away.
My final verdict on Pathology’s “The Time Of Great Purification” is, if you have $10 in your pocket and you are out looking for a new CD to add to your collection, add Pathology to your list of albums to get. They are a fantastic bands that helps the slam genre stay. Though, if you are going to listen to it make sure it’s not just the main focus. Play it in the background while you’re writing, cooking, playing video games or whatever you do that needs background music. If you just only listen to this CD you can get bored really fast. If you just want to listen to it and not own it, then you can find it on YouTube. I would suggest listening to a few tracks from the album first, such as The Ever Lasting Plague and Corporate Harvest.
This album is a really good album if you are into slam metal, but it is not a genre refining album. It shows off the skills of all the band members and slams really hard, but can get really repetitive and boring if you listen to it all in one sitting, or just listening to it on its own.
