"The white, greek church front now creates even more that impact, if they would put on the gloomy stonebuilding an incongruous larva..."
/O’Neill – American electra/

Time to introduce yet another Deity Down Records release, the Dutch Persistense. The band was formed in 2000, in Hertogenbosch. A year later they released a demo and in 2004 an EP entitled Persistense, followed by a promo release in 2008 and this year their much anticipated debut. It’s hard to tell whether or not lots of people were looking forward to it, after all the Dutch horde didn’t really bring that something new to the table. However, with the 45 minute-long In Blood and Heart they might as well start cooking. The cold and dynamic sound resembles Swedish old school death metals, I often feel the rigidity of the early Unleashed albums (in addition to Stefan’s bleak screaming) reflected in both the music and sound. The layout could just as well be a Relapse product, one of the most professional Deity Down Records (Ronald Visser) designs so far! But let’s take a look at the music.


A neat little enigma, since it is essentially trash-death but it is more difficult to categorize, after all the complex songs and grindings are displayed in various aspects. There are very melodic parts (with guitar solos) to be found, directly drawing from bands like Edge of Sanity, At the Gates or the later Carcass, mixed with Gorefest - and Benediction -like heavy riffs and breakdowns. And of course other songs are direct combinations of God Dethroned, Testament (around The Gathering), Arch Enemy, Death. Also, the name Slayer, Pestilence, Holy Moses, Bolt Thrower and Cancer often comes to mind. There are fashionable modern elements in their music, but the balance of always carefully maintained – they appear only for a moment. If I wanted to be very simplistic in descibing the music of Persistense, I would say it is a complex, not the least bit ordinary melodic death metal, one of the heavier sorts. They give us perfect rests and wonderful solos in addition to the fact that the essentially trash-centered riffs almost always turn into death metal, with a little progressive pondering as a side effect. The throbbing mixed with classical music in the Intro evokes the mood of Metallica’s S&M (but not just here, some riffs are extremely old Metallica-like), and for those who are familiar with the 1994 No Cause for Celebration album of Rosicrucian, I have to say that In Blood and Heart is a lot like that only more modern and more death metal oriented!

The influences are countless and recognizable, still somehow you can’t help to be enchanted by this self-confident mass with lots of hidden values. Not only can they produce unbelievable colors, but they just as good at painting a picture that can satisfy the listener. A masterpiece, even with a bit of uncertainty surrounding its uniqueness. Maybe that is exactly its charm, a hybrid made up of great ingredients, that makes the listener involuntarily sink into the burning-hot underground mass of Persistense, which is cold, hard and desolate on the surface.