I guess a lot of people will call Purest of Pain yet another “superband”. Fact of the matter is that the Dutch band does consist out of several well established artists of the metal community. It’s what you could call the pet project of guitarist Merel Bechtold (Delain, MaYan, The Gentle Storm) for which she is actually the main songwriter besides a gifted guitar player. The band came in existence already 10 years ago, but now finally after gathering people like J.D. Kaye (ex-Karmaflow, ex-In Vain) on vocals, Delain brother-in-arms Joey de Boer on drums, Michael van Eck (Vanaheim) on guitars and Frank van Leeuwen on bass, they’re releasing their debut full-length Solipsis!
The album opens with The Pragmatic which is a perfect intro to a typical melodic death metal release, setting the tone with very atmospheric guitars and already a short taste of what more is to come. Which is what I can dive in immediately without going too much in details: melodic death metal that sounds very much like they got a lot of inspiration from Dark Tranquility with surprisingly intelligible yet still viciously snarling growls. Throw on top of that touches of metalcore by the addition of breakdowns in several songs and a pinch of a prog sound with the more intricate melodies and guitar solos, sometimes playing with the kind of churning and chopping djent or even Satyriconesque feeling black riffs and you have a fairly good description of Purest of Pain.
Those breakdowns are one of the elements that for instance made Momentum stand out to me as one of the songs that’ll wreak carnage at live shows, a very churning and headbang-inducing track. And the lines “Is there hope left for mankind? There is none… They will fall everytime” are some damn strong lines leading into that one massive breakdown! Another really strong track is Terra Nil with its increasing feeling of urgency and deftly crafted guitar melodies that give the vocals a perfect backdrop. And the badass breakdown in Noctambulist after the soft and melodic little bridge gets me smiling and feeling up for a fight every time. Lastly, The Solipsist gets me excited as well, with the combination of particularly heavy sounding vocals and the unpredictable riffage and melodies that really make me think back on some of the best work by Dååth. And wait for the 3 minute mark where you just get J.D.‘s voice backed by Joey‘s drums before rushing back into those smart guitar riffs!
Purest Of Pain has delivered a quite impressive debut album with Solipsis. It isn’t very original with a lot of things you can hear from other bands as well, but they managed to combine all of these different elements into a quite captivating and fun piece of modern metal. Despite a few tracks the album could do without, this will be an album that I’ll catch myself rotating pretty regularly for the rest of the year when I feel like some catchy and properly crafted music.
Release date: March 1st, 2018
Label: self-released
Tracklist:
1. The Pragmatic
2. Truth-seeker
3. Vessels
4. Crown of Worms
5. Momentum
6. The Sleep of Reason
7. Tidebreaker
8. Trial & Error
9. Terra Nil
10. Noctambulist
11. E.M.D.R.
12. Phantom Limb
13. The Solipsist
14. The End
