This painfully rare cassette-only EP from Cleveland's Purgatory—their final release—found the group working with two new guitarists and a new vocalist compared to their previous outing in 1986's Tied to the Trax full-length, and it didn't hold them back one bit. The circle pit-inducing fast-paced, high-powered, ridiculously catchy thrash of the title track absolutely destroys me every time it crosses my speakers—despite the fact that the only rips floating around online kinda sound like dogshit (as evidenced above). Even still, "Dr. Pain" is seriously one of the best thrash tunes I've ever heard in my life. Somewhat strange that it's not even three minutes long and there's no guitar solo, but its energy is utterly flawless and infectious. Period.
Apparently, much of this material was actually reworked from what would have been Purgatory's second album with their previous frontman, Dark Alley Surgery. At one point it was rumored that a posthumous double-CD release of Dark Alley Surgery and assorted bonus tracks from that era was in the works, but... the world still waits. As always, I'd take it a step further and call for a complete discography collection. "Dr. Pain" alone is the #1 of a hundred fuckin' reasons why Purgatory's material deserves it!
