Confidence and Consequence

Too Pure to Die's debut album, Confidence and Consequence, was originally released in 2006 by tiny independent Sumerian Records, and then duly vanished without a trace for lack of marketing, promotion and, one would assume, music worth buying. But, lo and behold, just one year later, the band was picked up by formidable Trustkill Records, which hired rising producer Andreas Lars Magnusson (the Black Dahlia Murder, Becoming the Archetype, etc.) to remix their LP, and blend in new vocals from recently added singer Paul Zurlo, to boot. Initially, their signing and reintroduction seems like a major coup, as the distinctive metallic riffing, piercing harmonics, and clear-cut hardcore shouts of the title track (and later standouts "It Won't Hurt" and "99") reveal promising traces of Hatebreed, Throwdown, even Killswitch Engage. But as the album unfolds, it quickly becomes apparent that, remix notwithstanding, the vast majority of the album's tracks ("Bad Luck," "Dead to Me," "Our Only Chance," etc.) still sound surprisingly lifeless, leaden, and flat. And worse, their lack of inertia gets no assistance from Zurlo's emphatic, but oft ill-timed screams -- never mind Magnusson's supposed engineering salvage job -- oh well. Chances are there's something about Too Pure to Die that's yet to be revealed, or Trustkill wouldn't have bothered signing them in the first place, but there's no clear indication of what that something might be on Confidence and Consequence.