Purtenance
Member of Immortal Damnation

What makes the difference in a death metal album? Certainly, the technique of the members plays a very important role in the successful production of an album, as does an adequate production. However, there is one thing that alone is enough to satisfy the tireless listeners of death metal, and that is the atmosphere. If a record emits the right atmosphere, nothing else matters, as the Purtenance well knew back in 1992 when they debuted with "Member of Immortal Damnation".

Born three years earlier as Purtenance Avulsion in the city of Nokia, like Convulse, they arrived at their debut after the ground-breaking EP "Crown Waits the Immortal," already displaying what they were made of, and they do it in grand style. Indeed, we are faced with one of the best Finnish death metal albums ever made, and it can be counted among the classics of the scene.

Earlier we talked about atmosphere, and by listening to this work, one notices that the sound of Purtenance succeeds in conveying a sense of bewilderment and alienation like few others, as if the skeletal knight depicted on the cover were leading us on a long, slow march through a hostile and foggy landscape, skirting frozen lakes where everything is still, and the sun is nothing but a distant memory. After the initial dismay, however, all the anguish will disappear, and we will be entranced because, as I keep insisting, Finnish death metal is hypnotic, and as such, it manages to capture the listener who cannot do without this sinister and melodic style that never lacks a hint of doom. Doom, which in the case of Purtenance is much more than a mere influence; indeed, among all the local bands, they were certainly the ones that more than any other were traveling with the handbrake on, and just listen to the opening "Black Vision," with its very evocative title, to realize this. However, there are also more lively moments, like the last four songs, which seem to want to wake us from the enchanted sleep we have fallen into, also thanks to the delicate instrumental track "Lacus Somniorum," a pleasant surprise inside this dark album.

Subsequently, the group's history will follow a script seen several times before, namely disbandment after the excellent first work and a subsequent reunion ten years later, in this case, with half the original line-up. Death metal, and metal in general, has now become a genre that lives in the past, and its future is remarkably dark and gloomy, not meant in a good sense here.