Midwest hardcore band PURGATORY are about to unleash their sophomore full-length Lawless To Grave on April 9th via Unbeaten Records, and to celebrate and tease it a bit more, we have teamed up with the Midwest Street Metal to give you their top 5 albums that inspired the new record!
The new LP finds the band at their most adversarial, taking no prisoners while lashing out at systems of oppression and personal relationships mired by distrust, abuse, and religion.
Formed in the cold and desolate midwest in 2011, Purgatory, slings unflinching metallic hardcore with an emphasis on the metal sown into their sound, or as they’ve been dubbed, “Midwest Street Metal”. Pulling from influences foundational to their gritty world of hardcore such as Biohazard, Cold As Life, Stigmata, and Merauder, the band is just as influenced by their love of metal such as Dying Fetus, Cannibal Corpse, and Deicide. Regardless of what end of the heavy spectrum they fall, the band’s overflowing supply of raw and untethered anger comes through in full-force in Purgatory’s latest effort.
Over the past several years Purgatory has become a rising force in both the hardcore and metal scenes, leading the charge out of the grim Midwest with their debut LP, Cold Side of Reality. As a potent live force, the band has shared stages with such notables as Power Trip, Harm’s Way, Twitching Tongues, Ringworm, Terror, Merauder, and more. In 2021, Purgatory unleash their urgent and cathartic full-length Lawless To Grave into a world of chaos.
Check out PURAGTORY’s Top 5 Records That Inspired “Lawless To Grave”:
Unit 731 – A plague Upon Humanity:
Brian: Hard as hell, aggressive as hell. The writing is educated so it helps inspire us to write hard ass technical parts, not cookie cutter generic hardcore.
Biohazard – Urban Discipline
Tito: Urban discipline, by biohazard because they have untouchable style. It’s raw and in your face but packs so much groove. It made us try to emulate that style while still being hard.
Irate – 11:34
Josh: Hateful, Aggressive, and downright ruthless record. From the crazy time signatures to the heavy ass parts that slap you in the face we tried channeled every aspect. True street metal.
Merauder – Master Killer
Collin: One of my favorite/ best metallic hardcore records. Every song on this has it’s own own unique elements and SOB’s guitar playing directly influence us. The energy, rawness, and groove that Purgatory tries to always keep in our sound.
Cold As Life – Born To Land Hard
Matt: Undeniably the hardest and the epitome of a feeling captured through music. The harsh, dark, violent feeling BTLH portrays is a product of reality and pushed us to capitalize on bringing our realities to life through our music. Feel as we do. See and hear as we do.
