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Sanctifying Ritual > Sanctifying Ritual > Reviews > gasmask_colostomy
Sanctifying Ritual - Sanctifying Ritual

Songs from the crypt - 84%

gasmask_colostomy, June 5th, 2020

Packing a couple of members from Nocturnal Witch and one reference with Division Speed, you can bet that Sanctifying Ritual follow the same fast and unholy path. A minor twist in the method of speed, however, is that this German quartet play a more deathly variant on the black and thrash onslaughts of countrymen Desaster and Nocturnal. Taking things back to a primitive time when old school death metal was the only type going, the blurring of boundaries between different types of extreme metal suits the perennial deathly themes of this debut album. After more than a decade spent on demos and smaller releases, Sanctifying Ritual seems a very confident step into full-length territory.

Perhaps the only sticking point for some fans will be that Sanctifying Ritual are another sick thrashy death metal band in the old tradition. If this debut had been released 30 years earlier, we might be counting these guys among the Morbid Angels and Nifelheims of our world, though nowadays the sheer quantity of bands makes it tough to stand out. In truth, the packaging of the Sanctifying Ritual experience has just as much impact as the music, which is why fans of the style will slaver unhealthily over songtitles like 'Stained with Rotten Blood' and 'Obsessed by Gore', as well as the creepy as fuck cover art of an ossuary stuffed with coffins and corpses. Replacing the typical band photo with a high-definition picture of 4 decayed bodies certainly makes quite a statement as well. Therefore, Sanctifying Ritual haven’t tried anything new exactly, but done whatever they can to make an impact all the same.

Musically, slightly less effort is spent on unsettling the listener than pummelling them with a massive dose of riffs. The album sounds cavernously foetid, an underground reek blasting up from the intense drumming and grainy punch of the guitar, hitting the speakers with the slightly muffled crack of enshrouded bodies dropping into graves. Frantic passages of riffing stream from 'Stained with Rotten Blood' in the manner of victims running for their lives through awful labyrinths, guitarist Venomessiah making use of panicked higher notes to ensure maximum terror. The delayed leads offer a more enigmatic, but equally effective, foreboding tone. Rounding out the visceral experience, Tyrant’s vocals balance on the edge of the blade between early Sodom and modern Hellripper. Disciples of both those bands’ sounds might enjoy Sanctifying Ritual provided they develop a taste for the creeping ambience of '(Tales of the) Sinister Appearances', which opens the album as a more complex emissary from the Germans’ tomb of desperation.

A few reshaped songs fill out this full-length, among them the early Sanctifying Ritual standard 'Abominable Death Rebels' as the album closer. In this briefest song (the band tend to head towards 5 minutes for each cut), the primal rush of pure extremity is satiated, riffs stampeding without restraint and drums hammering desperately to nail the coffin closed once and for all. Though not exactly surprising, any death metal outfit’s ability to conjure mayhem on command should be counted among their strongest assets, and that’s without mentioning the thrashier sprint attained on 'Throne of Evil Atrocity'. In this regard, Sanctifying Ritual probably know they are aiming at a broad target with this debut album, yet the venom and skill with which they attack it ensures that every shot sticks. It’s unlikely that any new fans of hellhound death metal will be converted by a record such as this, but Sanctifying Ritual may even awaken some of the most deeply buried.


Originally written for The Metal Observer - http://www.metal-observer.com/3.o/review/sanctifying-ritual-sanctifying-ritual/