Ritual of Ash

Not the first death metal album I've reviewed this year, and oddly not even the first of its kind to come out this year; its kind being semi-experimental, Lovecraftian death metal solely influenced by Morbid Angel. Still, this isn't a constant mesh of blast beats, there is certainly more than just great riffs to digest here. The vocals are interesting in that there are differing types of growls/shrieks throughout the record with effects put on them to layer the slick, processed sound. At points the technicality and execution both vocally and instrumentally are in a similar vein to deathcore.

When the band isn't pummelling you with piece of musical equipment they own between them, they slow down and introduce some dynamic parts (which isn't out of character for a modern death metal band, see my review for Emerald Lord's new release) like the intro to Harbinger, which develops into a sluggish but brutal descent into madness with madly downtuned tremolo picking and ever-increasing intensity. Probably the main factor that makes this album stand out is that its more progressive sections become depressive at times, opening up influences from many other genres and does become a pretty cool thing that Ashen plays around with to ornament the rest of the music.

Gravemind has an evil but empowering ambience to it and relies on grooves more than speed. Disappointingly though, these slower parts do feel underdeveloped and should've been refined more. Aside from this, the riffs kick complete ass with a lot of variation. Blood is a stand out because of its looming atmosphere and use of dissonance and staccato rhythms. If there is one thing that needs to be booted out of this album, it's the random bursts of djent/metalcore that sounds way too happy and really doesn't fit with the sinking feeling present on Ritual of Ash. While I would appreciate this style of guitar playing from a band like Alien Weaponry, it isn't consistent with the intensity of this record.

Despite the slight awkwardness, especially later in the album, there is still a myriad of material here that's fairly catchy and sticks to the roots of Swedeath/experimental death metal of the mid-90s, and while Ritual of Ash will certainly make some older purists of the genre cringe at points, it would be harsh to say that this isn't a great showcase of brutality and another indicator that death metal is currently at another high point.