Ritual-The resurrection

2012

Not to be confused with a bunch of other acts by the same name, this Ritual knocked out three demos in the early 90's followed by three albums in the late 1990's. Now they return with their first album of new material since the 90's. Essentially this is a one man band with Ian Ritual handling all instruments and vocals. They get listed as melodic black metal. Now the pentagram and all the demon wings and pitchforks might have you thinking this will be some fierce, bone-crushing black metal. That's not so because when they say melodic the mean it because the music is very smooth. It's played well enough but pure black metal fans might be able to take just a little of this before having their stomachs turned by the slick music. However the vocals are far more of the growling variety. Overall the sound owes much more to doom than it does to black metal. It's not a thick sludge kind of doom, but a more slow yet steady barrage. It's a bit more showy for this style as Ritual (the guy) likes to swirl and noodle around on his guitar bits more than many players in this style. That's alright with me because it's sets them part a bit and he knows what he's doing. Once I got past this not being a stab you in the gut black metal album I actually it for what it was. Not an album I would listen to every day, but certainly it has plenty to offer for fans of slightly down tuned doom that's not afraid to show some classic metal roots as well.