Pure Evil – As Blood Turns Black, Mankind Shall Drown In Despair
As Blood Turns Black, Mankind Shall Drown in Despair (hereafter referred to as ABTBMSDiD for the sake of brevity) deceives as well as it torments, espousing lo-fi, depressive Black Metal one moment, and raw, mid-tempo/blasting Finnish BM assaults the next. The opposing approaches don’t collide so much as converge upon one another, the searing cold production leveling the ascensions and descensions in ferocity like a Makita planer. Well-placed Celtic Frost homages buttress the often-trod Black Metal tritones with welcome Satanic romps, each tailor-made for headnodding and reminiscing, blood-red libation inhand, about Tom G.’s mid-Eighties glory days. Mainman/sole member Kryth’s schizophrenic vocalizations run the gamut from guttural growl to knife-eating screech and widen the pallette of wintry tones beyond the hypnotic and stark; like the rise and fall of the tempos, the varied snarls put increments of grey amongst the blacks and whites. Besides the low-end vocal, other glimpses of Kryth’s more chaotic Death Metal-tinged earlier albums reveal themselves in guitaricisms peppered hither and thither, such as the palm-muting on ‘Slain By Frost’ and the DM anti-melodies on ‘Seas of Blood’ and the excellent closer ‘Surun Siivet’, a song that perfectly bookends the record with its slow steps into a darkened wood of despair. As a whole, the album would benefit greatly from the introduction of even more of these elements, as the inclusion of each is tastefully done and adds to the overall originality of ABTBMSDiD. Still, Pure Evil’s latest represents Kryth’s current state of artistic evolution well, and warrants attention upon wherever the project will head next. -Jim
Hammer of Hate
Worm Gear 
Knife-eating screech hahaha… Wonderful Jim! \m/
Glad you enjoyed the review! ‘Twas a very interesting album to inspire such colorful metaphor 😉 -Jim