To truly engage with a new full-length album from Nokia, Finland-based death metal legends Purtenance almost begs for a recap of Finnish death metal itself since these folks’ve always been held up as an early standout among a handful of early days outliers which define regional style, one of several groups of young folks who’d decided to react to the mania of extreme metal upsurge with a brutal, still unique sound in mind. It is almost too tempting, or, predictable to romanticize the old Finnish scene nowadays thanks to every corner of the past being well-lit but in approaching ‘The Rot Within Us‘, the quartet’s fourth album since reforming in 2012 and fifth overall, it makes less and less sense to flop in the mud of nostalgia like a hog for the sake of brief yesterdays when the band’ve built their own legs over the course of this last decade. Instead of fawning over the past (much) I’ll restate the general argument that the spirit of Finndeath is one which intentionally stands apart, an unincorporated group of bands aiming to not follow. Despite being grandfathered into ‘old school’ death metal historicity these folks continue to function as an example of endurance for those old ideals upheld, rather than aiming for ‘weird for the sake of weird’ antics their own gig is priority, not taking anyone else’s notes while presenting a brutally honest result.

Purtenance Avulsion weren’t the first band to produce proper death metal on Finnish soil in the late 80’s but they’ve earned their spot in the pantheon (as Purtenance) for ultimately delivering a distinct sound off the bat alongside one of the most essential examples of an early Finnish death metal full-length with ‘Member of Immortal Damnation‘ back in 1992, the year where all of the most exemplar records from the country would seem to hit at once. Demo only bands like Monstrosity, Interment and countless others deserve their own spotlight considering how much unique personae they’d contributed in their own right early on but we all know the most immortal names (Amorphis, Disgrace, Demigod, et al.) for the sake of their hitting that full LP benchmark at a pristine standard. Point being that a big part of discovering the distinct yet varietal early stylization of Finnish death metal comes with a short list of absolute essentials before the demos and post-’92 stuff factors in. As such, these folks are known for their first album which’d been the culmination of about four years of sweat put into their insular status as one of many lauded-in-hindsight gems to come from the early Drowned Productions roster. It is the main reason folks would pick up a Purtenance LP in 2023 and fealty to that debut is the main reason I’ve continued to check in with each of their four releases since reforming.

After The Crypt‘s boxed set reissue of Purtenance‘s debut circa 2009 it’d seem original drummer Harri put together a spiritual successor in Purpose but since I’ve not been able to locate that band’s 2010 debut album online I can’t yet consider it an entirely related project in terms of style, though the vocalist/bassist for that band would join him for the reformation of Purtenance in 2012. Their comeback mLP ‘Sacrifice the King‘ that same year was rough, killing some of the interest around the reformation of the band until their second full-length (‘Awaken From Slumber‘, 2013) proved the old magic was still there and they could indeed play their instruments in time despite the garage-level production values and distempered tone of the record. The two albums the band would record with vocalist/bassist Ville Koskela weren’t bad at all, venturing into death/doom metal style more often but otherwise sticking to the gloom-stricken traditional garage-heavy death metal sound the band helped pioneer. After ‘…To Spread the Flame of Ancients‘ (2015) released it was clear the band weren’t interested in perfect takes or an overly polished, self-referential sound as there wasn’t any particular modern polish applied to their work. Sticking to a raw, basement level scratch-and-growl for a set of records folks had been daydreaming about for two decades was a grounded choice and one which was true to Purtenance‘s sound and not the hifalutin nostalgia that’d built up around Finnish death metal by the end of the 2000’s.

Pidä se yksinkertaisena, typerys. — From my point of view Purtenance were never a band about cockish mastery, showmanship or elevation of death metal standards, they put together songs that reached a certain standard and moved on with it. At least that is what they’ve been doing since 2012, not overthinking anything beyond the point of what works as death metal from their point of view. While I’d not issue with the odd imbalance presented in the mix of their last three LPs the big criticism of their return on my part wasn’t the raw, unfettered state of things so much as the simplicity of their songcraft, an underbaked feeling compared to the broad ground covered on ‘Member of Immortal Damnation‘. This is less an issue of the band so much as it is years upon years of death metal revisionist thought putting pressure on an obscure death metal band to refine beyond the core ’89-’92 era of death metal, they haven’t made any moves to push beyond that idyll and there is no reason to expect that. Call it a rationalization but ‘The Rot Within Us‘ really is a straight up traditional death metal record, nothing more and nothing less, which includes its warts and all as they uphold the old Finnish sound.

‘The Rot Within Us‘ is the second album from Purtenance to include vocalist/bassist Aabeg Gautam (Benothing) and, sure, his voice is once again far too loud in the mix compared to the guitars but we find the band reaching an even more representative reach within their expected oeuvre than on ‘Buried Incarnation’ (2020) which I’d seen as the album to bring back the gloomier, heavier-set atmosphere of the band’s earlier efforts. There is an honest realism to Purtenance‘s sound since they’ve reformed, a live-in-studio feeling which leaves in the mistakes and off-color hits which resembles a human performance. In the past this’d produced a sort of amateurish nausea for the listener, a rushed and tentative result from a rehearsal room but overall this fifth record feels just intentioned enough that the atmosphere of the listening experience remains largely consistent. But hey, this’ll be second fiddle in the thoughts of the ‘old school’ death metal fandom since we all know the measure of the old ways isn’t pure atmosphere but the riffs.

The way I see the standard set for Purtenance‘s own point of view the early evolution of Bolt Thrower, Carcass and Autopsy et al. are important loose guidelines for generating morbid atmosphere which pairs unpredictable shots of aggression with meandering riff progressions to create a surreal thread prone to wander into dour early death/doom metal shaping. You’ll naturally find that ends up hitting upon the best characteristics of Abhorrence and other nearby groups by sheer point of view, bumping into the grand stretch of a song like “Unseen Sphere of Realities” (or “Invisible Master” for that matter) naturally takes us back to that place without pandering to the revisions upon the craft beyond 1993 and I suppose that is the gift of realism only an ancient set of unflinching ears could manage. In more clear terms, I’d found the riffcraft and songwriting on ‘The Rot Within Us‘ up to a higher standard (variety, depth of phrase, aggression etc.) than some of the band’s recent-past works as they lean into their strength of mid-paced, kinda doomed and gloomed-out pieces — the magick of the original band seems best represented. In this sense the ‘old school’ death metal fan in earnest, not the fashion-mosh bro social media types, should appreciate that the authenticity is there on this latest Purtenance record and that nostalgia chasers not yet satisfied by the return of this band should be sated well enough by now.

We get the broader range of Purtenance‘s gig up front with the too-succinct and incomplete feeling opener “Mournful Echoes”, a stretch from doom to kicking speed which constitutes a simple but effective gesture into the full listen. It doesn’t end as elegantly as it began but it does bleed directly into “Transitory Soul of the Righteous” a fittingly surreal piece of chunked-at fixation from the band that feels ruthlessly primitive in some of its movements yet manages an effectively forlorn register all the same, exactly the sort of effect I’d want from this particular band. I think they’ve done well to lean into this general dynamic for most of the ~37 minute run of ‘The Rot Within Us‘ as it feels like a mostly complete thought while taking notes and manages some viably memorable moments when simply enjoyed. I’d particularly liked the thrashing Asphyx-esque stab of “Solemn Presence of Death” and especially the Bolt Thrower inspired intro to “Fate’s Fearful Gesture” as these injected some dynamism into the second half of the full listen which still spoke directly to that 80’s unto the 90’s death metal feeling directly.

If they’re to be locked into this ancient identity as a point of purpose, at least they’ve made good on it. — Though it might seem odd to consider a revived niche ‘classics-era’ death metal band as a unique, somewhat original article before going on to praise the authenticity of their craft but the major point to make is that Purtenance have upheld the old standard, unhindered in accessing their point of impact back in 1992 while consistently aiming for an underground death metal sound which comes from a natural place, avoiding modernisms, shortcuts and the taint of trendy shit in the air. While I could make the argument for some underbaked pieces on some of the band’s past releases ‘The Rot Within Us‘ manages to iron out those quality control issues while still keeping it filthy, raw and surreal. A moderately high recommendation.

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