Take the raw fury of Black Metal with nonstop brutality of Death Metal, and you have a decent idea of the power behind the extreme metal act PERDITION TEMPLE.  "Sacraments of Descension," is the Florida band's third full length album, in addition to having an EP and a Split. Their latest album is a brutal beast made up of 8 tracks, clocking in around 34 minutes in length.  This is a perfect run time for their brand of Blackened Death and it makes for a quick but deadly adventure realm into the darker underground of Metal.  The album doesn't contain a lot of variety or many "in your face" tempo changes—it is basically full speed ahead for the most part.  But what makes the album so special is that it is so goddamn uncompromising. If you're listening to this type of sound, you aren't looking for variety or beautiful interludes–you're looking to get your face ripped off at a hundred miles per hour and the band certainly delivers on that front.  But the audio version of a five hundred care pile up isn't the only thing so great about "Sacraments of Descension."  The atmosphere on display may be furious but it also very hellish—subtle changes in the songs and certainly the guitar tone really make the music match the hellish landscape of the album's amazing cover art.

Gene Palubicki is a riff maniac—how his fingers didn't come lose during the recording of this album I'll never know.  It is impressive he is the only guitar player on the album—everything from the axe comes from his mind, his hands.  But he also handles vocals and they are just searing and perfectly pitched—not too high nor too low but at that dangerous sweet spot that cuts deep while not going overboard but still sounding inhuman. Ronnie Parmer and Alex Blume, drums and bass respectively, are the sulfuric landscape in which in this hell house has been built on.  Perhaps Parmer did give away his soul for extra arms–he certainly has the energy of several people. Blume cuts equally as deep with his bass, a constant battering ram that lifts up the very essence of the songs.

The opening track, "Nemesis Obsecration," contains more bombastic devastation in the opening seconds that some bands have in their entire discographies. Just when you think it can't possibly get heavier or faster, the song's mid section proves you wrong and also provides some unique guitar solos that rival the riffs for how many faces can be smashed per minute. "Eternal Mountain," immediately throws in groove laden with incredibly fast and furious double bass.  The vocals find their place among the chaos for a three and a half minute hell ride that ends as angry as it began.  A brief respite of about .5 seconds starts before "Devils Countess" begins another lesson auditory violence.  Not quite as fast as its predecessor, the song focuses more on riffs and leaves the song wide open for a couple of short but very wild solos.

But the highlight for me is "Red Reaping."  Even for Death Metal, for a band this fucking ferocious, this song takes the cake.  The song is just so...all encompassing with blinding speed, impossible drumming, and neck destroying riffs that I almost didn't believe it and had to listen to it twice in a row before I fully realized that here in 2020 after decades of Death Metal always trying to out death Death Metal, the genre can in fact get more extreme.

PERDITION TEMPLE might have very well have set a new standard on the capabilities of Death Metal in 2020 and has definitely raised the bar for anyone releasing an album this year.