This Minneapolis’ based four piece already released two albums prior to “Purification” (their debut “Unearthed” in 1994 and the follow-up “Dissection” in 1998), but to me they were still a rather unknown act until I got this self financed new album in the mail. The band’s musical nucleus is without a single doubt to be found in the brutal US Death Metal underground, but CRIMSON THORN obviously try to come up with a little bit more variety in their writing, by adding some additional, quite unusual elements to their sound. First of all there’s a track like ‘Humbled’, which combines the typical, brutally grunted American Death Metal style (CANNIBAL CORPSE / SUFFOCATION etc.) with the rather melodic Scandinavian aggression, while a song like ‘Narrow’ even offers a clean sung, almost chant like chorus middle section. The band also uses a keyboard once in a while, but not to polish up their sound, but more in the old MERCYFUL FATE type manner, to create an eerie atmosphere. Sounds quite weird, doesn’t it? Well, it ain’t, as the sheer straight ahead brutality is always their main concern and those mentioned elements just small exceptions to that rule. CRIMSON THORN are nevertheless a bit different though. Just like BELIEVER or MORTIFICATION this is also a band that incorporates Christian topics and quotes from the Bible into their lyrics. If you don’t have a problem with that, you can experience a technically very well executed brutal Death Metal outburst, with the usual deep grunted vs. aggressively screamed vocals (all four members are singing!!). Not really bad, but for some reason the material became more and more boring to me towards the end of this disc, which sells for $12 (US) / $14 (overseas). All further info you may get here: www.crimsonthorn.com, crimsonthornguys@hotmail.com