Trigger the Bloodshed is a band from the UK that was formed in 2006 and got round to releasing their debut album earlier this year on Metal Blade. Surprisingly, for a band from the UK, the band sound very North American and seem to have firmly placed themselves in the Cryptopsy school of death metal where aggression and speed is the name of the game.

The album benefits from the fact that the songs are all generally short and to the point. The band is heavily influenced by the likes of Cryptopsy and Suffocation except that the music has not yet reached the heights that those two bands have achieved in their careers. The band also has this inclination to write songs around breakdowns. At times it almost feels like the speed is happening purely because the band can’t wait to get to the next breakdown. In fact it’s not till the 4th song The Defiled that the band finally slows down and allows a vaguely melodic guitar line to break the claustrophobic wall of sound. Still, the pace is almost always ridiculously fast and when the band does finally decide to slow down it’s a case of too little too late.

At the same time, having got my peeves out of the way with regards to this album, there is something about this album that works and even sounds impressive at times. There are people who love this kind of face melting speeded up aggression and Purgation is an album that I’m sure fans of older Cryptopsy will enjoy. At the same time this album should also appeal to the death-core fans of bands like Carnifex.

The one major disappointment for me though is the drum sound on this album that sounds triggered and very fake. The other thing is that thanks to the faceless identical quality of most of the 17 songs on offer here, the album has a tendency to just merge together as one constant barrage of death metal riffs and blast beats. Purgation in fact comes across like one 36 minute death metal behemoth rather than an album made up of 17 individual songs.

At the end of the day, there is something that’s worthwhile about Purgation provided you’re into the brutal death metal thing and the band has definite potential but Purgation is a one trick pony and that trick gets old really fast.

Label - Metal Blade

Year of release - 2008