Album Review: Toxicon - 'Purge'

It’s never easy to score an album but it’s even harder when you have a debut release as complexly good as Toxicon’s 'Purge'. On the one hand, this is a tight metal album, which dives effortlessly in and out of different subgenres (see: groove, prog) with the well-versed hand of a scene veteran. On the other, there are moments on 'Purge' that don’t need to play out the way that they do: that feel unnecessary and already done. Nevertheless, there’s still plenty of value to be mined from the band's latest offering.

There are multiple moments on 'Purge' where you’ll sit back and feel undeniable joy at how well the group handles classic genre conventions. As 'Heroes of the Deluge' progressively gets dirtier, meshing cleans and screams and loading its riffs with technical speed, you’ll immediately get what I mean by that statement. Frankly, it’s just satisfying. But Toxicon doesn't do it all without the occasional twist: the crazy production filters on 'Death Proof' support that, while the emotionalism on 'Nowhere To Go' distinguishes the metal crew from some of their more cliché contemporaries.

Having said that, there are some clichés to be found within 'Purge'. The breakdowns, the super long closing track, the guitar solos…it’s not like they’re not noticeable. There are points that Toxicon is trying to make that really won't sink in until they're actually defined. But the redeeming factor is that you can’t master a genre without showing that you can get on top of it, as such, this is more a show of skill rather than a recreation of that one EP released by that random 2009 local band on the shirt your super metal ex-boyfriend with unusually long hair still wears.

Toxicon's 'Purge' is an album that you'd recommend to someone who had never heard of metal, but enthusiastically wanted to find out what its general stereotypes actually sounded like. It's loud, it's dark and it's appropriately grounded in furious instrumentals that soundtrack its world-defying statements. For the artists who crafted it, it represents an unexpected capacity to triumph in the genre. For the listener, this is cut-the-shit, headbanging material that leaves in just enough intrigue to keep it in your rotation a little longer.

1. Heroes of the Deluge

2. Deadly Sin

3. Wall of Mirrors

4. Crawler

5. Immersifier

6. Deathproof

7. Face of the Earth

8. Into the Filth

9. Nowhere to Go

10. Void

11. Event Horizon

You can check out 'Purge' right here.