Review by Shadowdoom9 (Andi) for Red Harvest - There's Beauty in the Purity of Sadness (1994)

Let me just say that going through the first part of a band's discography when you haven't heard of the band before may be both a good and a bad way to get around. Anyone starting with the band's early-2000s material can shake their heads at me disappointed for this route. That's OK because I like witnessing the evolution from the beginning!

It's amazing how constant the band can keep their unique ability of turning things around, so that each song is unpredictable in direction. In one song you can hear bleak slowness, and the next one you can the band's earlier hellbent thrash. There's Beauty in the Purity of Sadness shows the band mixing things up quite a bit. You can almost consider the music to be a slightly more deathly Ministry, among other sounds that are the dreams of many bands.

Already bringing you onboard is the fantastic opener "Wounds"! I still can't believe I hadn't discovered this band sooner. This extreme industrial metal banger ends with an epic one-minute guitar/drums outro. "Naked" is another song I absolutely love! "Resist" is what I would describe to a blend of Sepultura at that time and Circle of Dust.

"Mindblazt" has a similar vibe to the mid-paced earlier songs of Earth Crisis in the slower sections while the rest of it is firmly industrial metal. "Mastodome" is a slow sludgy 8-minute epic that sounds like the seed planted for two bands, Mastodon and Gothminister. "Shivers" is another awesome track that gives me shivers. "?" is as confusing as the one-character title says, being just a strange interlude.

"Mother of All" almost reminds of Mushroomhead in the pace and vocals. Now, "A.B.G.L.E.A.K."... I have no idea what that acronym stands for. I do know the song sounds like one Opeth's acoustic interludes. "Sadness" is also awesome! "The Art of Radiation" is another 8-minute epic, and the best way to end the album. Worth lots of praise!

See? Industrial metal can go extreme and dark with out going as blackened as Aborym. The muscular strength comes from the music and not the aesthetics. I can someday try to build up my potential for the band's more popular albums like Sick Transit Gloria Mundi, but for now, I can admire how influential this album is despite how rare it was at the time of its release. Of course nowadays, industrial metal goodness is easy to find on the web....

Favorites: "Wounds", "Resist", "Shivers", "Sadness", "The Art of Radiation"