Ritual - The Resurrection (2011)

Ritual are one of the earlier known black metal acts to hail from the west coast of the US, who had a string of recordings released through the infamous Wild Rags imprint. Meaning, of course, that some will venerate them as hallowed collectors' items while others view them as utter trite. The label had a pretty random, if well-meaning taste in artists. Now, Ritual was never to my knowledge one of the worse bands on that roster, and their debut The Summoning was a decent, if somewhat lackluster debut in a straight black mold with rasped vocals, sort of boring blast beats and synthesizers. The ensuing efforts would broaden their sound, for example I seem to recall Soldier's Under Satan's Command was more of a thrasher, and that was their last album...in 1998.

We're not talking Von ancient, of course, so by the time this band go around to releasing their earlier work, the European scene had already exploded and there were a number of American bands like Absu nipping at their heels. It was very easily to lose Ritual in the shuffle, for even though they would constantly reinvent themselves through the 90s, the music produced was never all that great and thus an album like Demonic Winter Ritual was understandably shoved under the rug. With The Resurrection, the first new studio full-length over a wide gulf of years, the Californians returning to some of the passion and atmosphere. I notice a lot of their earlier melancholy ingrained into these tunes, and so it seems like the logical successor to the debut, ignoring the albums that were released in the interim. It doesn't look like much on the cover, and I'm frankly tired of these minimal approaches to artwork which look more like demos, but even I have to admit that Ritual has one of the best looking band logos I've ever seen, and the intent here is to let the music speak for itself, without any visual imagery needed.

And it does speak, tearing and scratching at the listeners' heartstrings with the incredibly harsh, tortured vocals of Ian Fleming (no, not THAT Ian Fleming). For you see, while the band is like to consider this the spiritual successor to their debut, there has once again been a transformation, and the sound Ritual produces here is sort of a half-way point between black metal and doom, or rather moody, driving, melancholic rock riffs. Tunes like "The Resurrection" and "A Perfect Moonlit Night" are quite happy to strut out some simple chord patterns and glaze them in the sort of melodies you're more apt to hear in folk, black and pagan variants rather than an old guard like this one. Know what, though? It functions well enough. The contrast of Fleming's rasp and the consonant, structured thunder of "Drowning Into the Sea" or "Winter of My Discontent" are strangely accessible but bitter harsh all the same. The band has also seen fit to also involve some variation, like the pretty straight melodic death shots of "Temples of Baphomet's Sons" or the ambient/cadence outro "March of the Damned", or the more straight rush of punk-fueled black metal in "Executioner of the Elder Gods".

The production here is an exponential improvement over any of their past albums, but then, back then underground bands just didn't have the means of modern recording. The guitars are clean and graceful, the drums far more dynamic than the crappy sound on the debut, and the vocals just knife directly through you. The question is, can you handle a more sorrow-born, simplistic and doom-laden brand of black metal? We're not talking something as dense and depressing as, say, Forgotten Tomb, but those who seek the truly grisly, harsh and primal tones of the underground might not hear satisfaction in this, and The Resurrection is surely bereft of complexity. But all told, I rather liked it. Perfect this is not, but an effective glimpse at what might have become if black metal had taken a drearier root to its goal of spirit leeching.

Verdict: Win [7/10]

http://www.myspace.com/ritualblackmetal

Blood of the Black Owl - A Banishing Ritual (2010)

Blood of the Black Owl's previous meditation, A Feral Spirit, was a haze inducing ritual of both beauty and terror, as extreme as it could be tranquil, and really promoted the band to the forefront of our metal scene's peripheral artists, capable of a vision far outside the status quo even in such eclectic genres as black, doom, drone or folk metal. There is simply not much else out there that can capture the repressed spirit of native America in musical form, and place such a tax on the soul of the listener. For A Banishing Ritual, the reins seem to have been tightened a notch, partly due to the fact it consists of a single track in four 'movements', all of which combine for 40 minutes of intense immersion that can drown out your day.

Chet W. Scott (of Ruhr Hunter and many other experimental projects) returns here with collaborators James Woodhead and Daniel Ellis Harrod for a lengthy, disturbing journey. Into the trials of jarring strings, black swelling ambiance and chant-like, ritual vocal we are taken with the first of the tracks motions, 'Intent', which is possibly the most fascinating of the album. "The Statement of Will (Movement II)", which occupies only about 4 minutes of "A Banishing Ritual", opens with an extremely basal, raw doom metal rhythm that is soon bypassed by a montage of eerie woodwinds, ringing strings and carnal vocals, only to return to the guitars for the transition into "Chant of the Captured Spirit (Movement III)", which is the most ominous of the album's stages, 11 minutes of slowly escalating noise, warbled voices and warped synthesizers that tide over into trilling flutes and soothing, daemonic whispers. "The Final Banishing (Movement IV)" grows from this into sparse, further fucked whispers that are cut through with occasional jaunts onto an acoustic guitar, distant shrill synths that emulate the whipping winds of perdition and a climactic finale which feels like being hunted through a cold Northwestern night by regressive cannibal savages.

Like any successful work of its kind, A Banishing Ritual sucks the listener into a vortex of the unfamiliar and then peels away each layer of sanity from his/her stiff mind. I didn't actually appreciate it quite so much as its predecessor A Feral Spirit, but that is partly owed to the single track format...I simply didn't feel compelled by its entirety as I did with many of the songs off the prior release. Regardless, it's highly engrossing and I am very eager to experience this when hiking season begins for me in the summer. A wondrous, though not always pleasant soundtrack to the empty places of the wild (and the soul) untouched, at least temporarily, by Quiznos, Verizon and Lady Gaga.

Verdict: Win [8.75/10]

http://www.myspace.com/bloodoftheblackowl

Hammemit - Spires Over the Burial Womb (2008)

The debut for this dark ritual ambient project of former Emit members is difficult to describe, yet nonetheless fascinating. The central focus is the chanting of dark monk-like voices, layered in disturbing atmospheres which evoke a sense of rapture, of madness, ultimately doom. Evil guitar strings and droning ambient synths smother the distant words of this grim brotherhood.

The opening track "The Young Monk in Earnest" is almost a glimmer of uplifting hope here, featuring a single chanter with some percussion dispersed over him. Then the title track grows darker, and it is followed by the dense, deathlike pipe organs of "A State of Blissful Unknowning" and the masterfully grim "Shamelessly I Went Around". "A Joy So Near to Melancholy" is an instrumental, and "A Distance Not So Distant" returns with even more staggering, sweltering ambience. This track conjured images that I was lost in a winding medieval sewer system, and in the distance I could hear what sounded like dark, forgotten rituals transpiring as I became overwhelmed with labyrinthine paranoia. Yes, a single track from Hammemit can do this to you. Autothrall warned you.

The rest of the tracks are just as good, and this is one of the best dark ritual/ambient releases I've heard in some years. The chanting is just icing on the cake, providing an anchor to weigh in the strings, synths and rare percussion. The chanting IS, in fact, the percussion here, in an abstract light. A haunting debut and I hope this project will get off its feet and continue, I will await the next release and track down the former work of Emit in the meantime.

Verdict: Win [8/10]

http://www.myspace.com/official_emit

Hexentanz – Nekrocrafte (2004)

Although more properly known as a collaboration between The Soil Bleeds Black and Psychonaut 75 members, Hexentanz came to my knowledge as a side-project of Black Funeral mainman Michael Ford. Occult ritual ambience spawned from the same dark mind? Yes, please.

And I wasn't disappointed. In fact, I've yet to find any other piece of music that feels so purely occult. Created to channel the spirit of the ancient Witches Sabbath, Nekrocrafte evokes vespertine gatherings; shambling processions of fevered worshipers performing unholy abeissance to dead or neonate gods. The indistinct sound of chanting is captured in ambient drone whilst drums beat with the heady fever of trance. Male and female voices channel inhuman tongues, hell diplomats coercing and threatening. Period instruments, mark of The Soil Bleeds Black, lend their wearied cries.

Each piece retains ritualistic simplicity; mesmerizing thematic loops reinforcing the inner focus of shared energies inherent to spiritual congregations. This makes for great background or mood music, something to really let your mind go to, but it also means that each song is fairly straightforward. Thankfully, that's more or less the intent, as Hexentanz abstain from attempting to truss up their sound, choosing instead to keep it natural and true to the source. Extra goat horns for the excellent treatment of vocals. Not only do they manage to keep out of cheese territory, but they achieve the rarity of genuine creepiness.

Verdict: Win [4/5]

http://www.hexentanz.us/