These reviews had to get cut down to fit into the spread. Here’s the uncut versions!

Kevin Tully

Ocrilim’s Purging Trilogy is something I can appreciate for what it is.

There’s not really much going on in the whole damn thing except guitar track over guitar track over guitar track times infinite. It’s basically 2 hours and 12 minutes of one dude playing guitar. Now, I have to say I’m totally in awe of anyone that can see a project of that magnitude to completion. Especially considering the fact that all 24 tracks sound different from one another. That’s fucking impressive, I don’t care what you’re into.

But is appreciating this behemoth of a trilogy the same as enjoying it? No. It’s not. Though I certainly found some enjoyment out of a couple tracks on this three-part epic (Namely Ixoltion Part III and “Annothrith Hymn 5″), they were few and far between. I understand why people like heavy-handed experimental musicians like Ocrilim. And shit, if this sort of music is your thing then you’re totally gonna love The Purging Trilogy. It’s just not MY thing.

I’m not asking for the two hours of my life I spent listening to it back, I’m just saying that I probably wouldn’t do it again.

Angela Sanders

For an album that is over two hours long, not a whole lot happens.

The Purging Trilogy is a huge undertaking for the listener, and while I can appreciate Barr’s technical skills as a guitarist, I cannot help but be dissatisfied with the product as a whole. Part 1, Ixoltion, has a constant drone in the background and not much layered on top of it. The potential for an epic album to match its epic name was there. So, I waited. And waited. And waited.

Nothing.

The same phenomenon occurred in part 2, Sacreth: the drone and the minor layering, but nothing that caught me off guard.

At least part three, Hymns, had some variety. But the technical aspect had lost its intrigue and I felt like I was listening to my life just hum by. Music should be more engaging than that.

Basically, The Purging Trilogy is a two-hour guitar solo: great for the guitarist, but a musical drone for listeners.

Peter Starkebaum

It all starts with a pain bearing, angst-spiked guitar with an accordion-like drawl during Purging Trilogy I: Ixoltion. That leads to an annoying buzzing bass draped in static infused white noise. However, in this horror there is an attraction; the notes feel sensitive and bare, the guitar alone gives me the feeling of an open nerve being sliced. But the noise cuts not so sharp as serrated, and it makes my ears wince. The longer I listen, the more my mind circulates with annoyance and frustration. As I write this I am listening to Part II of Ixoltion, and all I really want to do is punch a spinning fan.

Actually, a spinning fan might be a good image for the first part of the album, in which repetitive rifts further urged on my frustrated attitude. However, as the album revolves toward Purging Trilogy II: Sacreth, it becomes clear that the progression of the album will reflect human life: a mingling of pleasure and pain.

In this case, that powerful collision occurs with mercy when the percussion breaks in as a grounding force to the relentless shredding. Finally, the album’s chaotic mood seems to have found relieving stability.

And then the Annothrith Hymns begin. They seem like a ghostly reflection of I and II, and I feel an oddness of opposites while listening to them, like a steady heartbeat after two cups of coffee. In reflection, the Hymn’s felt like a romantic after thought to the Sacreth’s Industrial Revolution, where the rhythm attempted to tame the raw wild guitar chords. Ultimately, the Hymns ended the album in a complete way and left a clear impression that the album had a distinct direction.

Overall, the experience was heavy and epic; it provoked perspective and true emotion. But if someone asked me if I enjoyed the new album, I would have to say it was like picking a scab: it took some cold shivers and necessary pain to get in to the warm, sensitive and bloody.

Sage Dahlen

Ocrilim’s The Purging Trilogy is more than an album. All told, it clocks in at just over two hours and twelve minutes. Seeing as so much music consumption is measured in seconds, listening to this project is sort of a commitment.

What fills that time could be described as a soundtrack to a torrential rainstorm, or a migraine headache. It’s long, self-indulgent, unremarkable noodling with some badass grunge and metal riffs interspersed (I’ll save you some time – the best track is Part 3 of Part II, Sacreth).

Trilogy, however, is not long in a “I-want-my-life-back” way, because it never fully holds your attention. You can troll around on the Internet, or make dinner while Mick Barr twiddles his fingers over guitar strings.

But how much can you really ask for from a solo guitar project?

Zach McCormick

My journey into Ocrilim’s uniquely daunting Trilogies was not one I willingly gave my full attention to. I’ve never been much of a fan of experimental classically-influenced metal. I’ve never been much of a fan of either classical music or metal, for that matter. This process was, at some times, akin to aural invasion by tiny alien buzzsaw. It was not fun.

But, I, ladies and gentlemen, am a Journalist. And that means something goddamnit. So I’ll listen to all two and a half fucking hours of this thing if it kills me, because ethics are the only fucking thing that matters these days anyway.

Look, I’m not going to say that the album’s final screetching, feedbacking decent into silence wasn’t the best thing to happen to me all night. I basically did everything I could to hold back the sweet tears of joy. But this is a legitimate work of music here people, and we have to treat it as such. Ocrilim may be the Public Enemy Number One within my auditory cortex, but he deserves a fair shake like everyone else, and I’ll be the man to give it to him.

This is actually a trilogy of Albums by the virtuousic solo guitarist Mick Barr. The first album being Part I: Ioxoltion and the second being Part II: Sacreth and you can see where this is going. Sacreth has a drum machine (the other two are solo guitar) and contains the album’s only highlight: “Part 4”. The rest of these songs, while all virtuosic and technical and lofty, really aren’t all that engaging. Great playing simply does not equal great album, and this record will really only appeal to diehard genre fans, who will probably love it because it’s a masterpiece. Everyone else is going to run in horror away from the mental sandpaper that is layer upon layer of buzzing, treble heavy guitar constantly switching tempo and time. If Rachmaninov had been raised in a stoner metal band, this is probably what he would have come up with.

So if you enjoy this sort of posturingly virtuosic playing from a fellow who probably spent many long hours pouring the midnight oil over at the music school, by all means, Trilogies is probably album of the year for you. For the rest of us however, it’s a droning torturous mess of buzz and pretense.