Year:2020
Total Time: 1:19:38
Label: Mouth Of Belial Productions
THE PROJECT HATE MCMXCIX (from now on PROJECT HATE) was founded in 1999 by multiorganist (guitars, bass, keyboards, sampling) Lord K.Philipson to express his musical vision. In fact he is very active, since 1999 has recorded twelve full length album. “Purgatory” is the 13th one. His bandmates for this record are Jorgen Sandstrom (vocals on the first three abums for the legendary Death Metallers GRAVE and bassist for ENTOMBED from 1995 until 2004, being the only one left from the original line-up), Dirk Verbeuren (with numerous participations in several extreme metal acts and now as MEGADETH’s drummer) and Ellinor Asp, former SNOWY’S SHAW collaborator.
The music of PROJECT HATE could be described as Industrial, Electronic Death Metal. The opening track “Kill Everyone” give us a full picture of what’s going to happen in the entire record. Melo Death guitar riffs, clear and massive bass lines, warm, analog, précis yet technical drumming, switching growls and clear female vocals plus a lot of electronic stuff. The same motiv could be heard also in “Atonement”, “Sacrifice”, “Diatribe Cult” and so on. The album contains six tracks whose length varies from 12:30 to 14 minutes, which is very common and usual in Funeral/Doom, even in Progressive Art but “Purgatory” is neither of them. I caught myself trying to predict, listening to the songs, which will be the next move. In the beginning there are some heavy riffing then – vocals by Asp- growls by Sandstrom-again female vocals-stop for electronic music- again heavy riffing and so on. We can hear some acoustic parts in “Birth” and the guest vocals in “Diatribe Cult” by Johan Lanquist (CANDLEMASS) adding a Power/Doom feeling. “Purgatory” was produced and mixed in Unisound Studios by mastermind Dan Swano (his name is a warranty for a crystal clear recording).
Let me tell you the truth, I felt tired listening to “Purgatory”. At first I was focused on music itself, but after several listening sessions I caught myself doing parallel office and house works with “Purgatory” in the background. I’m sure this was not the intention of the group, perhaps if they could reduce the length of the songs, quite a few interesting moments wouldn’t be lost. But on the other hand, if this is the band’s vision, then it’s ok from me…
Rating: 6/10
Editor: Dimos Karadimos
Related Link: THE PROJECT HATE – Official Page
