While Greek death metallers Dead Congregation will no doubt appeal to fans of the sort of murky, ancient death metal that's current enjoying a resurgence in the underground, there isn't anything retro about their oppressive and thoroughly evil sound. The band draws from the warped doom-laden chaos of early Incantation and the murky dissonant power of Immolation and is obviously rooted in the cavernous, slime-covered depths of the early 90's death metal scene, but Dead Congregation blacken this sound and increase the suffocating heaviness, forging it into their own unique vision. The early Dead Congregation records have been re-issued by Nuclear War Now and are available on both lp and cd, and both their first Ep and the follow up album are highly recommended to anyone into highly atmospheric, dirty, doom-tinged death metal.

This is a killer reissue of Dead Congregation's 2005 Ep Purifying Consecrated Ground from Nuclear War Now!, again presenting this Greek outfit's cyclonic death metal chaos in a gorgeous vinyl presentation. Their dissonant, Incantation-influenced hellscapes sound absolutely suffocating on this debut Ep, bringing their own mutant flavoring to the sludgy, howling deathdirges and violent blastwaves with some demented hooks rising out of the creeping doom of songs like "Lucid Curse" and the killer end-time leads on "Auguring An Eternal War". The gut-churning vocals and seasick serpentine riffage wind through twisted, psychotic arrangements, never sacrificing their oppressive heaviness for technicality for it's own sake, instead concentrating on creating a maelstrom of madness and rot. The lyrics for Purifying are more interesting than your typical death metal spewage, too; they read like ferocious anti-Xtian poetry brimming with visions of Lovecraftian apocalypse and battlefields spiked with the impaled corpses of angels. It's crucial listening for fans of cavernous, oppressive doom-laden death metal.