Los Angeles-based band Ritual has had a long career as it was founded in 1993. As a veteran act the project has suffered some changes during its existence. Initially, Rituals was a pure black metal band, though the band’s sound evolved during the following years until 1999, where the band became an inactive project. As it usually happens this seemed to be the end of Ritual, but the founder, and only original member Ian Flemming, reactivated the band and returned in 2011 with a renewed line-up. As it is quite common with these bands, the change of members has been constant and only from 2017, it seems that the current trio may be more stable.
As mentioned, in its early-stage Ritual played pure black metal, though over time they introduced some thrash metal influences, that become more and more prominent, and at certain moment the thrash metal structures become the core sound of Ritual’s compositions. In contrast to this strongly thrash metal influenced albums the new opus, entitled ‘Epic Sagas’, sounds more firmly rooted in the black metal genre. At any rate, the thrash metal and even heavy metal influences remain there. This new opus is a homogeneous offer of a mid-tempo black metal, where the guitars are maybe the best part of it. Production-wise, the album sounds rather good as the guitars, drums and vocals are audible and distinguishable, being the production clean but not too polished. The vocals mainly performed by Ian are quite good with a clear vicious tone, that reminds me some thrash metal bands. His screams are solid and fit perfectly well the band’s style. The rhythmic base is probably the less impressive aspect of this album, as I can´t personally remember a single moment where it captures my attention. I don´t think this is the drummer’s fault, rather than the fact that the song structures may need a greater room to vary, if we want to introduce more different and interesting drum patterns. As said, the song structures strictly remain with the same pace, with little exceptions as it shyly happens with the slightly faster and more aggressive ‘Beginning Of The End’. In any case, the guitars are the shining instrument here as the mid-tempo songs let the main role to them. The riffs are quite well composed and executed, and the melodic tone of the whole album is undoubtable. Songs like ‘Conquer all’ and especially ‘Open Seas’ offer us some enjoyable melodic riffs and tasteful solos, which I find quite entertaining. The riffs are quite catchy, and this aspect is the strongest point of this album, a characteristic that is especially remarkable in the last songs song of ‘Epic Ritual, as for example the very good ‘Pallbearer’.
In conclusion, ‘Epic Sagas’ is a good album with some certainly good aspects as the guitar work and the solid vocals, even though it suffers from predictability, due to the lack of variety in terms of structure patterns and pace. An extra-work on this aspect would be very beneficial for the band as the solid fundaments are already there.