Jon Schaffer’s Purgatory
Purgatory EP – Century Media Records
Today we’re going to take a trip. To a time loaded with horror and unease. And that was just the fashion back then. Ha! Jon Schaffer’s Purgatory plunge us back into the mid-1980s, when the tracks for this EP were penned. Jon Schaffer? Yep, he of legendary Iced Earth. Iced Earth evolved from Purgatory. And Schaffer has got most of the old band back together with amazing effect. Original singer Gene Adam hisses, screeches and screams through this five-track release of real American metal. Eerie, chilling ‘In Your Dreams’ has a menacing underlying riff, laced with chilling guitars and horror movie lyrics. ‘In Jason’s Mind’ is turbo charged and terror injected. Proceedings are rounded off with teeth gritting, headbanging ‘Burning Oasis’. These songs are over thirty years old, but absolutely do not sound dated. And once you start listing all the bands Jon Schaffer’s Purgatory must have influenced, you’re hard pressed to stop. The ‘Purgatory EP’ is one hell of a journey. Just don’t have nightmares…
Review by Jo Wright