FARSCAPE - Purged And Forgotten

DYING VICTIMS PRODUCTIONS is proud to present FARSCAPE’s long-awaited fourth album,
Purged and Forgotten, on CD, vinyl LP, and cassette tape formats.
Formed in 1998, Brazil’s FARSCAPE helped lead the charge for the neo-retro thrash
resurgence in their homeland, which continues unabated to this day. A slew of releases
came in 2001 – two demos, and respective splits with Atomic Roar and Vexed – but it was
the 2003 debut album Demon’s Massacre where FARSCAPE first (and fully) stamped their
name on the international metal map. While their contemporaries took slicker or more
technical routes with their thrash, the quartet’s defiantly flew the flag of hate raised by
Kreator during the mid/late ‘80s; in fact, vocalist/guitarist Witchcaptor could be a deadringer
for classic Mille. During all this, all four members – amazingly, THE SAME LINEUP to
this day – pursued other equally archaic metals with the likes of Diabolic Force, Atomic Roar,
Apokalyptic Raids, Sodomizer, and later Whipstriker, further sowing the seeds of influence in
their native Brazil and abroad. Two more albums followed, 2006’s Killers on the Loose and
2013’s Primitive Blitzkrieg, as well as a handful of short-length releases, but FARSCAPE
essentially went on hiatus following that third album.
Now, a full decade since their last official recordings, FARSCAPE return with arguably their
best album yet, Purged and Forgotten. After an eerie (and quite surprisingly melodic) intro,
the fire & fury of classic Teutonic thrash is felt – and, by proxy, which they helped shape in a
way most Brazilian so many years ago – but equally burning are some new, ever-so-subtle
twists on that noble idiom. Without ever quite going fully 'slick' nor 'tech,' FARSCAPE here
manage to honorably defy the Teutonic template: a more pronounced emphasis on leads,
alternating between the eerily melodic and the tensely harmonic; tiny touches of
atmospheric synth underneath the ripping riot of violence, further emphasizing the eerie; and
in Witchcaptor’s charismatic snarl, an equally surprising number of thinking-outside-the-box
patterns as well as layering, giving Purged and Forgotten an unusual, almost-'hall of mirrors'
aspect. Elsewhere, the quartet’s songwriting locates that sweet spot between the linear and
the twisted, not quite resorting to standard verse/chorus structures nor going overboard
into the overly complicated. Simply, the red-eyed & rabid rush of classic FARSCAPE is
accounted for, but these discerning veterans aren’t short on honorable ways to wind their
characteristic sound. Purged and Forgotten? Not fucking yet!

Vinyl release of Farscape - Purged And Forgotten. Released through DYING VICTIMS PRODUCTIONS and available on LP.