The whole thing is frightening, but viscerally compelling. On the first EP the band also stomp through skull-strewn soundscapes that are dismal and oppressive and they lace the music with piercing and abrasive tones that strike like ice-picks in the ears, with quivering supernatural synths, and with occasional doses of dissonant, nightmarish cacophony (especially in the closing track). It moves like a massive, primitive juggernaut, but also explodes in spasms of violence. This formulation of black/death is muscular and marauding. Ritual Death I is utterly vicious, packed with roiling, raking, and mutated riffage that’s episodically deranged, imperious, and hallucinatory, driven by brutish pounding rhythms so formidable you can feel them in your guts and bones, and topped with haughty and harrowing rabid-beast vocals that at times also sound hideously insane. The second one, also self-titled and also initially released by Terratur, was that 2018 offering of new music I mentioned above. The first one, self-titled, came out via Terratur Possessions in 2016. These two re-issued EPs are damned impressive too. I don’t know who is in the band now (they haven’t released any new music since 2018), but M-A shows current or former members of Behexen, Dark Sonority, One Tail, One Head, and Funeral Harvest (among others) and people who have performed live with Black Majesty, Whoredom Rife, and Misþyrming (among others). Inspecting Metal-Archives shows that the band’s line-up is impressive. But I didn’t follow up to see what Ritual Death was all about until noticing that the Russian label Living Temple Records had released tape and digital editions of two Ritual Death EPs on February 11th of this year. Ciekals, though the focus of that interview was his band Djevel. I remember hearing about this band, most likely through Karina Noctum‘s interview of T. It includes reissues of some older EPs, a trio of recently revealed tracks from forthcoming albums, and one full-length that came out about 10 days ago. What I’ve chosen for this week’s black metal column provides a good variety of music for heathen tastes (or at least I think it does).
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |