Artist: Perdition Temple
Country: USA
Label: Hells Headbangers Records
Format: LP / Cassette Tape / CD
Year: 2025
Without being sure what the reason was behind Perdition Temple’s previous album, ‘Merciless Upheaval’, that only had the A-side filled with new material and the entire flipside consisted of cover songs, I never felt this was a worthy successor of 2020’s ‘Sacraments Of Descension’. Perhaps it was Covid-19-related, but regardless of the reason ‘Merciless Upheaval’ felt like a bit of a rush job. The original tracks are just fine and straight up in the right Perdition Temple tradition, I can’t really see it any differently than an EP. However, this makes the arrival of a full-length Perdition Temple album, which fully honours the band’s dazzling Death Metal tradition, all the more gratifying.
Usually promo texts sent my labels are rather lengthy with many spectacular but meaningless words, yet the one that came with ‘Malign Apotheosis’ is remarkably short and to the point. And that is exactly what fits this album. It is hard to imagine that anybody who likes their Death Metal slightly blackened and thoroughly evil, free of weak-ass grooves and mid-tempo parts, is unaware of Perdition Temple. Yet, in case any of those rare cases actually exist…
With a wealth of experience in such bands as Ares Kingdom, Brutality, Malevolent Creation and especially Gene Palubicki’s Angelcorpse, it is no surprise that Perdition Temple is basically releasing only AAA+ albums. Their whirling Death Metal is somewhere between Morbid Angel and a band like Krisiun or later Vital Remains: expertly combining speed and technical wizardry. Palubicki has some of the best and most recognizable riffing style, both choppy and razor sharp and that perfect combination is brutally displayed here. That makes that this power trio unleashes hell with every song. In almost 40 minutes they show that Death Metal, even when all songs more or less revolve around the same sort of frame work of ideas and the band’s trademark sound, can still be very captivating.
Every Perdition Temple album is intense and unfolds more intricacies with every listen, and ‘Malign Apotheosis’ is no exception. Now that the trio has added a fifth album to their oeuvre, it can be said with a firm conviction that Perdition Temple is an act of meticulous consistency and a more than worthy successor to the now silenced chartbuster Angelcorpse.
