Mind Equals Blown

A Plea For Purging The Marriage Of Hevan And Hell

Metal | Facedown Records

MEB Rating:

3.0

User Rating:

9.6

6 Ratings

With two albums down, it was time for A Plea For Purging to either sink or swim. Both A Critique of Mind and Thought and Depravity received positive feedback, and as it turns out, APFP continues to please their fans with The Marriage of Heaven and Hell.

A Plea For Purging’s third album, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell is nice and heavy. Frequent breakdowns, thick riffs, and front-man Andy Atkins’s deep voice will please anyone in favor of the metalcore genre.

The first thing I hear is that it could be easy to get bored with Andy’s mostly one-tone vocals, but the band added enough other elements – breakdowns, screams, chants, and electronics – to keep the vocals interesting. What impressed me most were Andy’s clear vocals throughout the entire album. With a voice that stays deep and doesn’t have much range, it’s pretty easy to understand the lyrics, a concept that any metalhead would know is often lacking in the scene.

As all Christian metalcore bands do, APFP’ put their thoughts on religion into TMOHAH. The album shows listeners their “wolf-in-sheep’s-clothing” views on American Christianity today, how they feel that God is being made into a product to sell rather than an entity to praise.

The album begins with “The Eternal Female,” in which we hear a reverend passionately preaching to his church, and then crashes in the breakdown like a tidal wave drowning out the reverend’s words. Guitar squeals and heavy riffs follow – a strong start to an intense album.

The first song flows well into the second, as every song on TMOHAH seems to do. Clips of a preaching voice and ominous sounds seem to go along with the TMOHAH theme that continues in songs “Sick Silent America,” “The Fall,” and “New Born Wonder.”

Surprisingly, clean vocals are present in “The Fall” and “Finite” that gives the album a lighter feel. This is something new to APFP, and it seems as though they are tentative about the change, as they are used so sparingly. Singing lyrics such as “How did we get here? What did we do?” follows the theme of APFP questioning Christianity today.

The ninth song, “The Jealous Wings” intrigues me the most. It is not just a slow song, but a ballad at that. APFP seems to take on their own interpretation of soft-rockers Staind. After only one listen it got stuck in my head, though I’m still not sure whether that’s good or not.

It seems as though A Plea For Purging has done well with their third album. As with all changes, A Plea For Purging took a chance on those in The Marriage of Heaven and Hell – turns out it was for the better, as it not only strengthened their sound but surely earned a growing fan base.

Author: Lauren Remenick View Staff Page for Lauren Remenick

I’m a junior at Elon University in North Carolina. In both college and high school I’ve only known about one or two other people who like the same music as me. Most people who meet me are confused because my room is decked out in colors of pink, purple and teal with bows and bonsai trees, but my walls are covered in band photos and posters. I’m a 5 year-old girly-girl at heart, but have an intense love for metal, somehow it works.

(6 votes, average: 9.66 out of 10)

 Loading ...