Pure

Pure - Kingdom of Wrath
Humanity's Plague Productions, 2014
Genre: Black Metal

1. The Nightside Throne
2. Astral Vanity
3. The Red Moon
4. Shroud of Hate
5. Imara
6. This is Life
7. The Last Ritual









If you are familiar with the band Borgne, then you know this musician has a lot to offer. Maybe not in all of his projects... since looking through his roster on Metal-Archives gives a huge smattering across many genres. However, with Pure he delves into the realms of raw Black Metal, which is something I'm very interested in. The name of the project really isn't that great, even if it makes sense given what he's playing. There must be hundreds of bands in existence with this name out there... The art direction certainly fits the project and hearkens back to the mid-90's of Black Metal for me. The booklet contains pictures with just a single line of lyrics here and there to be vague, but enough for us to get a sense of the lyrical concept.

Despite being listed as raw, the recording quality is actually pretty decent. The guitars are a little fuzzier than usual in his later Borgne material. Now that Borgne has trended into the full Atmospheric Black Metal route, Pure reminds me a bit of Borgne's early days, like "II", for example. So, if you've missed that furious harsh edge in the Borgne sound, its being sort of resurrected here. Sometimes the modern version of Borgne can't be escaped in the atmospheric edge of some songs like "The Red Moon" or the length of some of these tracks being nearly ten minutes in cases.  This still has the same high quality in song writing, so it makes for a great album. It's a pretty dynamic experience wending through passages of sheer intensity, while having melancholic sections that bring the listener to a nice lull in the storm of hatred. Tracks like "This is Life" have riffs that really stand out to me and are simply exceptional songs.

While this may not be the "raw" Black Metal people would expect, it's still quite good. It's not raw like Moonblood, or Horna, or any of those bands, so if that's what you're expecting you might be a little disappointed. Still, the strength of writing holds this up quite well, which is something I've come to expect from this musician. It's actually nice to see him return to a more vicious style of Black Metal, perhaps waxing nostalgic as many musicians do after years developing their newer sounds. If you were a fan of the earlier Borgne material this is a must have.