This is the debut album from Australian death metal band Resin Tomb.
Cerebral Purgatory is brought to us by members of Descent and Siberian Hell Sounds, and assails the listener with 29 minutes of scathing deathgrindsludge mayhem.
This is ugly, nasty stuff. It’s essentially a hybrid style that combines malignant death metal, feral grindcore, and blackened sludge, delivering eight murderous tracks that are steeped in brutality and bladed dissonance. I suppose you could say this has a base of dissonant death metal that’s edged with grind and sludge, but however you interpret Resin Tomb’s style, there’s no arguing with how effective it is. I like dissonance in my extreme music, but it’s hard to pull off in a way that makes you want to listen to it over and over; Cerebral Purgatory suffers from no such issues.
Cerebral Purgatory is the sort of face-ripping nightmare extreme metal that I can’t get enough of. It’s massively intense and visceral, yet more considered than you might expect. Resin Tomb use layers of dissonance to add depth to their punishing assault, with a subtle technicality that’s absent from many ostensibly similar acts. This is surgical barbarity that’s unafraid of adding nuance and feeling to its malevolent violence.
Resin Tomb have created a surprisingly multifaceted and compelling record. It’s harsh, abrasive, and covered in jagged spikes, but also benefits from atmospheric, emotive, and nuanced elements that add a great deal to the overall experience.
Cerebral Purgatory is an easy one to recommend to fans of bands such as Vermin Womb, Teeth, Converge, Sunlight’s Bane, Mastiff, Elder Devil, Full of Hell, and similar.
Wonderbox Metal 