Released though Deathgasm Records, The Cleansing is the highly anticipated new album from old school Swedish death metallers Nominon. It is a release which will easily satisfy and thrill all those waiting blackened malevolent hearts. Dripping venom and malicious enterprise, the album is soaked in the essences of the likes of early Morbid Angel, Dismember, and Entombed, but distils its own festering breath and black heart to stand as a release which offers something fresh and invigorating. No genre boundaries are worried or stretched it is fair to say but with something this devastating yet inspiring who gives a rotting corpse.
Since forming in 1993, the band has forged a heady and mighty onslaught of creative sounds in their perpetual corruption which has garnered strong acclaim and followings. From their Promo 1997 demo through the likes of debut album Diabolical Bloodshed of 1999, Recremation in 2005, and Monumentomb of 2010, to pick just a few of their releases, the band have built a mighty reputation and stature. The years saw difficulties for the band but with 2004 said to be the moment things truly changed and rose up for Nominon, the band raised their stock further with their releases alongside impressive festival performances and tours. Following two splits earlier this year with Kommandant and Graveyard, The Cleansing is unleashed to stand as one of the mightiest old school inspired releases this year.
Starting with the atmospheric intro Satanical Incubation, the title fully encapsulating the crumbling and sinister ambience 
within, the album explodes with bile grafted enterprise through In The Name Of Gomorrah. Driven by the striking rhythms of drummer Perra Karlsson and the guttural demonstrations of vocalist Henke Skoog, the track tramples through the ear with heavy intent and crippling intensity. The underlying groove beneath the scything riffs from the guitars of AntiChristian and Alex Lyrbo is compelling and alleviates some of the intrusive erosion which is permanently at work, though it too is drenched in the intent to ravage the senses and extinguish any remaining light.
It is a formidable start which is built upon impressively by the following likes of Mausoleum and Unholy Sacrifice. Both tracks consume the ear in a fury of bestial power and unbridled malevolence. The first is nothing less than a bruising entrapment of crushing rhythms and spiteful sonics alongside destructive riffs whilst the second exchanges a full on assault with rabid tenacity from the guitars and even blacker merciless poison from vocals and rhythms. The bass of Juha Sulasalmi stalks knowing it already owns your soul adding a further debilitating urgency and strength to an already corrosive presence. Alongside its successor the track is one of the highest peaks in many towering pinnacles within the album.
The title track is the other unmatched triumph. It is an instrumental furnace of rasping sonic energies, dizzying twists, and grinding enterprise from the guitars. Unrelenting from its first caustic expulsion to last, the track just leaves breathless disorientated wreckage in its scorched earth.
Abhorrent Parasites and Hellwitch both abuse the wounds caused from the previous encounters on the album with merciless intensity and insatiable fury from all departments, whilst the likes of Obliteration and Son Of Doom condemn the senses and thoughts to perpetual darkness and diminished hope. Like the album they are spiteful fires of vehemence and unforgiving attitudes within a ferocious intensity veined by imaginative and skilled intrigue which are nothing less than contagious.
With the vinyl version of the album also having the track Slaughter the Imposter exclusive to its body, The Cleansing is a deeply satisfying release which should have all death metal fans shouting from their rooftops.
RingMaster 09/11/2012
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