Hate Forest – Purity (2003)

September 10, 2023

Love this album. I love the balance between the (dare I say) atmospheric, hypnotic riffs (a la Burzum) and just flat out brutality in the drum department. Guess it’s like Varg jamming with Frost or Nick Barker, only the drummers are not allowed to deploy their flagrant tom rolls and cymbal flourishes and must instead just focus on their machine-gun precision. Such stupid comparisons aside, Purity is fucking great. The songs are quite lengthy but do not feel so.

The vocals are a different kettle of fish to most black metal and I think this helped, if anything. The vocal delivery is far more guttural than the usual expected otherworldly shrieks and howls that the genre promises.

I’m not sure if this is sketch or not (the songs appear to be about Lovecraft stuff in the main?) but as I’ve said, it’s a really impressive album.

Side note: I’m familiar with the reissue above, but the original art below is pretty cool too.