By the time this
Album came out,
Quorthon had more or less gotten enough inspiration to continue through with
Bathory on his own and had already brought out two thrash
Albums and the completion of the mysterious
Blood on Ice concept
Album. However, our great metal hero still had more to bring out that was not fully in the same vein as
Bathory.
This brings us to
Purity of Essence, a two-disc deal that
Quorthon's last exploration into the world of grunge and regular metal. I rate this so high because the
Album quality is at the peak of
Quorthon/
Bathory's career: right alongside
Destroyer of Worlds and the
Nordland Albums. But that's just the start: it's damn hard for me to find something wrong with this
Album. It's just that good.
Purity of Essence explodes into life with a groovy, thrashy number "I've Had It Coming My Way." It happens to be one of my favorite
Quorthon songs of all time, even more so than "
No More and
Never Again." It's short, but there's a lot of good riffs, bad-ass lyrics and guitar-shredding packed into the three-and-a-half minutes of the song.
Since this
Album is rather long, consisting of two tracks and a total of twenty-three tracks all-together, I'll focus on the ones that really stand out.
Track number three, "When Our Day Is
Through", is a good, strong track that sounds like one of the grunge hits of the 90s and early 21st century. Seriously, turn it on and try hard not to imagine that song playing on the radio. Fortunately, this
Album succeeds in being hard and fast, but not getting stale.
That is because, in addition to a few acoustic/melodic intros in several of the songs, we also have softer numbers to dispel the monotony. After nine, heavy-hitting tracks on the first disc, we get "Fade Away", the soft-track of this side. It really shows that
Quorthon is capable of writing songs with more emotions than just anger and such. Even more so, there's an acoustic guitar solo on this song: talk about skill!
Now we enter disc two. Does it start as hard as disc one did? There's definitely enough good riffs on this, and plenty of guitar solos in "Roller Coaster." Furthermore, in regards to those who think that
Quorthon cannot sing, I would invite you to listen to this song: his voice never breaks or sounds off-pitch. In fact, here we find
Quorthon finding a good, middle ground with his singing voice. As a fellow baritone low-register singer, I now have another great to look up to and admire. Plenty of good tracks on this disc, like "All in All I Know" and "Deep", but there are now more softer tracks as well, to relieve any more monotony. "Just the Same" begins with the soft patting of the rain, and more of
Quorthon's clean singing. Yes, they might be a little strained, fooling many into thinking it is incompetence. However, wasn't that a part of the grunge scene, strained clean vocals? Besides, I thought that it was the absence of auto-tune that made a singer good. There's a certain realism that his voice has, sounding rough and all, as opposed to clean and automatically in tune. Hells yeah for the whistling solo!
Now we come to the closer track. Sadly, it is just perfect for the last great thrash/grunge
Album of
Quorthon. Like "
Hammerheart" from
Twilight Of The Gods Album of
Bathory, "You Just Got To
Live" has a conclusive air about it that really helps us realize that this is his last
Album of his solo project. Besides that, it is a testament to living. Just existing and experiencing the beauty of life: a sharp contrast to the death, blood, Satanism and Nordic atmosphere of old
Bathory. Though it is a soft track and not a true "heavy" song, it is a more fitting conclusion to
Quorthon's saga than "The
Wheel of Sun" from
Nordland II.
It is really sad, in my opinion, that
Quorthon's solo material never got recognized. It is truly amazing, not just because it is different than his older material, but because it shows off his skill at being a versatile musician. I hope Dave Grohl is happy that one grunge master lived and died in obscurity, never achieving his due recognition. To me, it is sad. May we enjoy
Quorthon's music forever.
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