The worst is yet to come according to Pure Wrath.
With his fourth album, Bleak Days Ahead, Ryo (multi-instrumentalist/vocals, Cadavoracity, Insolent, Lament, ex-Perverted Dexterity…) has once again placed his trust in Debemur Morti Productions.
He is joined live by Teguh Prasetyo (bass, Insolence, Digging Up…), Arief Rahadian (drums, Digging Up, Chancroid, Opium), and Agung Prasetia (guitar, Opium, Interfectorment, Tujikane…).
A sample introduces us to Bleak Days Ahead, Pt. I, the first track, before letting us be submerged by an ocean of darkness as melodious as it is dissonant, embracing its rawest and most violent elements with the arrival of the musician’s roars. We feel the full brunt of the coldness of his music, punctuated by brief, haunting moments of calm or even mysterious near-silences that allow the riffs to flare up again, borrowing from DSBM through the striking screams, then the sample leads us to Bleak Days Ahead, Pt. II, where we find a more contrasting approach. Pure darkness skillfully blends with extremely evocative, ethereal touches rooted in folk, yet it also knows how to express itself with a very lively and violent intensity to create an extreme but perfectly managed contrast as the sounds overlap before transitioning to Haven of Echoes, which begins with an almost Olympian calm. The clean vocals blend with dissonance for an initially soothing opening before shifting into raw violence, itself filtered through intriguing tones, leading seamlessly into Spectral Insomnia, which doesn’t take long to set the stage ablaze and unleash a veritable eruption of darkness. The track races along at a brisk pace but also knows how to take a step back to insert an ethereal break on the keyboards before resuming its frenzied rush toward a distant, distorted finale, then on to Opaque Mist, a track that begins like a post-rock piece and retains its conventions for a long time as it progresses until saturation takes over, offering us another approach that keeps intensifying, eventually featuring screams to accompany the clean vocals, before abruptly fading out.
I immediately loved Pure Wrath’s sound on their previous album, and Bleak Days Ahead reminds me of that raw and striking discovery I made a few years ago. Not easily accessible but so rich, the album deserves a place in your collection.
90/100
