EP Review: Anti Ritual – Anti Ritual

Not to be confused with Anti-Mortem, like this reviewer might or might not have done, Anti Ritual‘s four experienced members all have deep roots in the Copenhagen hardcore scene. As Marco Malcorps, lead singer and lyricist pointed out in a recent interview, the quartet are so-named because “the acts of playing music and screaming out lyrics serve at times almost as a cathartic ritual – to get it all out, you know.” In fact, he’s quite clear here about the reasons for forming the band. “I worry about what kind of world we are leaving for our kids, and if we will leave any world at all.” Naturally, this mindset moulds their focus with Malcorps explaining their lyrics are “a harsh critique of mainstream society and the feeling of being in opposition to it.” Their aim, then, is to empower and arm the populace to give them “a way to cope with these feelings so as to not sink into total fucking apathy.”


What is clear is that no matter the topic (war, politics, social malaise or environmentalism), this latest slice of barbaric D-beat angst is an awesome exercise in the art of battery. Recorded and produced by the band themselves, mixed by Jakob Reichert Nielsen (Rising, Lack) and mastered by Brad Boatright (Nails, Sleep, From Ashes Rise), the six tracks on this self-titled EP hit with the force of a battering ram. With a mere 16-minute running time it really is a case of get in, make your point and get the fuck out. The combination of a primal throat-ripping vocal, splattering riffage and a thunderous stampede of skins certainly form a powerful alliance.

From the off the band’s blackened lungs hack-up waves of sludge and thunder as they deliver, short sharp blows to your ears. Opener “Ideals To The Fire” grumbles and growls like a pissed-off, chained-up rottweiler faced with a tormenting postman. “Slave Dogmatics” ups the ante, escaping the obliterating one-dimensional dirge to marry Black Breath‘s incisive menace to High On Fire‘s wild stringwork. Through speeding, dissonant chugs and howling chord sweeps Jacob Krogholt carves us out a new level of fury. The true mindbender here is “No Second Earth”. The message here is clear – without change humanity’s self-destruction awaits. “And here we are… in total disregard“, wails Malcorps. K.B. Larsen’s snarling bass frequently pitches its way to the surface and the intensive crush of Nikolaj Borg’s panicking kick-drum releases into half-time to create space within the track. The effect is mesmerising.

Blistering on through the swarthy, bludgeoning efforts of ‘The Highest Privilege’ and ‘Blame The Victim’, the former replete with a cyclical, echoing passage of cantankerous doom-mongering, we reach a vital, impressive kink in this EP’s evolution. Through a squall of feedback comes the elephantine pacing and vitriolic refrains of a ‘A New Discourse On Enlightenment.’ Through the breaks and chugging patterns, Malcorps simmers like a pre-menstrual Jamey Jasta on morphine. With bulging veins he delivers one final crawling message riddled with malevolent spite that caterwauls its way to an inevitable oblivion.

Aimed at those with dark souls, those malevolent extremists seeking a new level of violence, Anti Ritual certainly crams in a lifetime of pain into an infuriatingly short running time. You may emerge bloodied and bruised by the experience, but you will believe that this Danish foursome’s point is undeniably valid.

Also online @ Heavy Blog Is Heavy = http://www.heavyblogisheavy.com/2014/05/05/anti-ritual-anti-ritual/

Album Review: Purified In Blood – Flight Of A Dying Sun

It was I that hailed Under Black Skies, Purified In Blood’s sophomore album, as 2010′s best, calling it “crepuscular, bellicose, demented, swaggering, invasive” but, ultimately, “consummate”. In my mind, it blew away the competition that year, and I’ll stand by that opinion today. So, two years, down the line, one vocalist down and with a fervent desire to return to the raw potency of their Reaper Of Souls debut, have the band managed to retain the black magic that still gets me so hot under the collar?

Well, they’ve attempted to get around the loss of Glenn “Reaper” Rasmussen (who does make a brief showing for the track “Iron Hands”) by cramming in a few guest spots. Drummer Anders Mosness uses his Kvelertak connections to convince their frontman Erlend Hjelvik to rip into “Mot Grav” and Siberian throat singer Albert Kuvezin lends his extraordinary, never-ending rumble to the introductory “The Absolute”. Otherwise, it’s all down to Hallgeir Enoksen who, to be fair, has an absolute beast of a vocal that more than stands up to scrutiny. More than anything it’s this man’s nail-gargling roar that so endeared to me to the band in the first place.

“Storm Of Blood” is ripped with it, Enoksen digging out fury to go with the sort of drum battery and rotational guitar grot you’d associate more with the hammer and anvil stoner attack of High On Fire or the crust-covered ‘core of Black Breath. When the crush returns for “Mind Is Fire” (the thrash attack and vocal patterning on the chorus oddly reminiscent of Sylosis’ “Reflections Through Fire”) it’s even more powerful. Even that though is not the heaviest thing on the album. That honour goes to the galloping, blocky crush at the four-minute mark of the title-track; check it… it’s an utter mind-bender.

One reason for this increase in brutish weight requires a glance at the men responsible for twiddling the knobs. There’s few safer pairs of hands than those of Jacob Bredahl and Tue Madsen and they certainly haven’t impeded any of the thunderous intensity that the band have managed to knock out here. When they dial it down a notch and inject some driven groove they manage to produce the album highlights. Tracks like the throbbing neck-snappers of “Void” and “Iron Hands” come closest to matching the addictive peaks that Under Black Skies reached. Hjelvik brings along his black n’ roll spikes, and with “Mot Grav”s added thrash licks, the band dig out a real powerhouse.

Other than those rutted monsters though, the band are found to be rather wanting. At times, it is Ådne Sæverud’s frantically whining Hammond organ or Sander Loen’s wild, disconnected solos that are to blame as they succeed in derailing PiB’s chug-worthy building blocks; at other times it is the speed and noise-worshipping, a desperate search to raise the raw and inject the heavy, that has negated the neck-snapping cool of their sweetest rides. Although they manage to fish out several interesting minor chords, some swathed entirely in black, for long periods they seem to entirely forgo their fondness for structural build and plaster over any potential breaks in sound, ditching the chance for barbed hooks or sharp licks, to create yet more bulging angst and all-encompassing heavy. Worst of all, with only eight tracks to play with and running times trimmed, we get fewer changes of direction and a stingy 35-minute total.

Despite these flaws though, I simply can do nothing other than stringently insist that you try this on for size. Okay, it’s not the game-changing album of the year that their 2010 effort so obviously was, but it’s still got big, bushy chops on it and enough shades of black to make it worthy of your undivided attention. It will certainly be interesting to see how much of an impact they make on the scene this time and, more importantly, in which direction they will head with their next release.

Also online @ Ave Noctum = http://www.avenoctum.com/2012/06/purified-in-blood-flight-of-a-dying-sun-indie-recordings/

Album Review: Black Breath – Sentenced To Life

To find an album that sets off the same kind of emotions and sensory reactions that you’d experience when seeing the band up close and personal is a very rare thing. The last album I felt this way about was Black Breath’s perfectly-titled debut Heavy Breathing. With its gritty, damaged production values and hammer to the skull attack, all it took was the volume knob to be yanked to the right and eyes to be squeezed shut and suddenly you’d find yourself flinching from the imagined flailing of arms. Your blood pressure would rise, beads of sweat would be summoned forth and heart palpitations would have you clutching your chest until you’d be forced to open up those lids and dial back the sound. Inevitably, then, you might expect this sophomore effort from Seattle’s sonic battering ram, Sentenced To Life, to have the potential to do the same.

From the off, “Feast Of The Damned” sees the band sucking up a reversed soundtrack before spitting it back out in a hail of sputum as the raging, low-end, fuzzed wall of chugging guitars produce what can only be described as a deep, continual growl. The cantankerous punk spirit of the vocals and gang-chants do the rest sending you barrelling straight into the title-track where the band get their full rock on. It’s from this point onwards that Black Breath find new ways to break you.

It’s not a wholly new concept for them but, even more so than on their debut, Black Breath are keen to surprise by switching their method of attack to come at you from two different sides. They are either compacting crushing hardcore into a speeding rock n’ roll ball and scorching a d-beat-happy crust brand onto its surface, or they are slipping on a death-mask and swaggering their way into the arenas of doom and black metal. It’s like hearing Kvelertak driving Autopsy-sized nails into Entombed’s coffin.

Tracks like “Forced Into Possession”, “Mother Abyss” and “Doomed” offer you the chance to get your pump on as the band feverishly burn through their own style of step-on, step-off thrash mania. Often the drum patter is so rapid and the buzzsaw guitars so all-consuming that they begin to outgun even themselves. At some points during “Of Flesh”, before a sharp break for a slow-dance of spinning harmonics, the music seems ready to shake itself apart and they lose that vital level of intensity for a while. Thankfully, they regain composure quickly by winding it back to a mid-tempo chug – don’t think it’s your chance to rest easy though, as before long they’re back tearing your head off and spitting into the bloodied hole.

The real magical element of Sentenced To Life though, comes when Black Breath reveal their dark side. Tracks like “Home Of The Grave” drops down for the chorus to an almost swampy, smeared, loping crush as vocalist Elijah Nelson manages to twist his scorched, atonal delivery into a screaming weapon of mass destruction. With a title like “Endless Corpse” inevitably getting its black on, letting slip the moaning soul of a dying guitar, it’s our first real taste of how they can mash d-beat battery into something even more menacing. There’s a sharp breakdown where a warbling riff takes centre-stage amidst a wall of fuzz that steadily crescendos to agonising levels.

They climax by stepping yet further away from their bread-and-butter. “The Flame” brings to the fore a feisty hardcore vocal, a diamond riff, steady chugs from the depths of hell, and a swaggering blues-flecked confidence. There’s even a memorably giddy riff to revel in. This is essentially gutter rock, yet the chunks of fuzz lift it above all-comers. Think of it as sounding like a steroid-abusing, puffed-up Black Cobra or a more insane sibling version of Nails. The scream near the end is from the charred throat of Satan himself. “Obey” is even blacker, crustier and more inherently evil. It is crawling with raw power, pumped out by some unholy force. Fuck, this is heavy. The sudden flick to clean is a nod to their more raw and wild side – almost a signal of the change as a solo comes screaming in.

Having learned how the album was jammed through in a matter of days, it’s a surprise to find the album hammering so hard on so many doors. God City studios maestro Kurt Ballou still keeps it down and dirty having, once again, resisted the temptation to produce the album to within an inch of its life (those 10 tracks dive in and out of your lugholes in just over 30 short minutes). However, with the introduction of more bleak trudgers to balance the squalid d-beat batterers, that signature live feel was never going to be as intense. Yet, rather than disappoint, Sentenced To Life has you reeling just as hard, only with a bigger smile on your face, thankful for a chance to breathe more easily; to fully soak up the see-sawing brilliance of a band at the top of their game.

Also online @ The NewReview = http://thenewreview.net/reviews/black-breath-sentenced-to-life#comments

Album Review: Five Days Of Rain – Taste My Breath After The Fallout

The dark, starkly industrial “Intro” soundscape combined with the maniacally skidding entry, colossal breakdown and elongated scouring howl that adorn “Feeding My Own Entropy” supply you with everything you need to know about Five Days Of Rain’s credentials. Their biography – formed in Italy 2004, EP recorded 2006, change of line-up 2007/8, signed to Rising Records 2009 – neatly wraps up the facts, but it’s their music that is the most revealing.

Taste My Breath After The Fallout is a hefty slab of sonic obliteration that owes a great debt to the vagaries of modern American deathcore but also clings onto the speeding coat-tails of early Swedish death metal. Easily identifiable are the crushing half-time vortex breaks and double-kick battery that bands like Black Dahlia Murder and Suicide Silence delight in, the furious palm-muted riffing and harsh, throat-scraping vocal style pedalled by Whitechapel and Job For A Cowboy, and screwing it all into place are the incessant galloping rhythms and buzzsaw guitar characterized by bands like At The Gates and Entombed.

The polyrhythmic assault and buffeting verbal squall that power “Searching Within Their Memories” and the jagged shreds, riff sweeps and power chord harmonies that litter the otherwise spacious “Corneal Ulceration” show off both the band’s impressive technical ability and their wild, imaginative songwriting ability. They’ve found a distinctive, addictive style and they seem reluctant to give up such a position of power, nailing each song to their snot-slicked flagpole, proudly repeating their own colors over and over again.

Certainly, one downside to the pinpoint accuracy of the drums is the naff metallic click on the kick drum – it sounds like a particularly indignant conductor tapping on his lectern. At times, it’s so incessant it becomes mildly hypnotic but that sensation soon develops into a nagging annoyance. But when you’ve got a monumental, balance-shifting sub boom that explodes into each beatdown and spine-tingling layers of crash and ride on tracks like “As An Ocean Rebuilt The Life” to contend with, it’s easy to forgive such small inaccuracies.

We’ve had to wait a while for it, the release date having been pushed back due to “a series of misunderstandings, delays and mistakes”, but it’s been a debut album worth waiting for. An extra layer of recording polish, a more generous running time and just a little more variety and Five Days Of Rain will seriously have something to shout about.

Also online @ The NewReview = http://thenewreview.net/reviews/five-days-of-rain-taste-my-breath-after-the-fallout

Album Review: Black Breath - Heavy Breathing

My review - originally published on TLOBF:

For Heavy Breathing, Black Breath’s debut album, the Seattle quintet travelled to Godcity Studio in Massachusetts, workshop of the Converge kingpin Kurt Ballou, to try and inject some real menace into their hardcore. The result is a coming together of the most vitriolic punk and the blackest of metals; enough to send even the meanest looking two-stepper diving for cover. Coming from a band that’s toured with acts as diverse as The Accused, Nachmystium and Book Of Black Earth it’s no surprise that some of that pungent evil has rubbed off...

Full review = http://www.thelineofbestfit.com/2010/05/black-breath-heavy-breathing/