A Plea for Purging - The Life and Death of A Plea for Purging

I've given A Plea for Purging a lot of shit in the past. The band has always written good songs and they're a great live band and some of the nicest guys I've ever gotten to meet. But their production (especially their drum production) has always kept me from embracing the band and being a big fan.

The band's fourth full-length, The Life and Death of A Plea for Purging, is by far the band's best and finest work to date. The album is warm and rich sounding, sonically huge. The drums are rich, the guitars are full sounding, the albums sounds great.

But even outside of the production realm, A Plea For Purging stepped up their game big time. The songs are just better then anything the band has written before. The Life and Death isn't an album full of breakdowns (something I've also been critical of before). The first three tracks all have a familiar vibe with former Plea songs but there aren't constant breakdowns and the overall quality is great. "My Song" on the flip side is one of the most melodic songs APFP has written to date (without losing any of their heaviness). Even songs like "Skin & Bones" and "Hands & Feet" don't feel out of place because of tracks like "My Song" and "Words Misread" have such a great melodic undertone that the softer songs work and keep a great dynamic shift song to song, keeping the album fresh.

The Life and Death is not only A Plea For Purging's best record to date, it sets them up not only as one of the top bands on Facedown but one of the top heavy bands in today's scene. The Plea boys should be super proud of this record. If you weren't a fan of Plea's previous work, you shouldn't let that keep you from picking up The Life and Death. One of the best records of 2011 for sure.