This one goes out to all the possible black metal fans who read this shitbox who have no doubt read a few of my reviews on how critical I am of raw black metal.
Up today is Failure Ritual, a cavernously raw black metal/doom band from somewhere featuring one or more members who's names are something and something. I'm not trying to be cute here in my vagueness, although I am, but that's about all there is to dig up on this outfit: nothing. Aside from a BandCamp page I can't find anything else on these/this cat(s), so bear with me here on the details. I will say however that I do not feel this is black metal, yeah there are some black metal leads here and there and the vocals are something you would hear in a suicidal black metal outfit, but this entire operation reeks of Project AIDS style doom; but hey that's just my opinion man.
Details aside, what about the sound asshole? You may have noticed I labeled Failure Ritual as "cavernous", and frankly that's about all I can use to describe their sound. Imagine Sunn O)))'s wall of amps blasting out bulldozing walls of noisy almost Black Mayonnaise style riifs miles down inside of a large cave, and you're at the outermost opening listening in, that's Failure Ritual. There is a steady wall of fuzzy noise throughout the entire album that gives you a hypnotic feeling of sheer openness and chaos, but at the same time allows the guitars, drums and electronic elements to burst their way through the noise and give an utterly eerie beyond comfort level atmosphere. And coupled with the suicidal-esque black metal style vocals, which sound like a tortured soul moaning miles under the ground in Hell, the overall sound is haunting, immense and LOUD. The guitars range from funeral doom riffage to echoey Wormphlegmy leads that just progress at a snails pace, but in the most awesome way possible. The drums appear to be from a drum machine, and are not what you would consider diverse, providing the necessary snare and crash hits to keep a steady pace, but they fit perfectly into this style of music, so I don't see this as a fault at all. The mastering and overall production is fuzzy, loud and muffled to the utmost degree, but again, in the best way possible. All the instruments, backing noise and vocals blend perfectly in this giant vat of ooze, to which I have nothing negative to speak of. Overall it's just a fucking evil sounding album, that by moving at such a glacial pace provides a perfect avenue to suck you in to a hypnotic trance, an ability that most records are just flat out incapable of doing. I love it.
This 61 minute long album is broken up into three tracks, however some tracks contain multiple movements which to me could have acted as stand alone tracks. But for those doing the math, those are some long fucking tracks: 21, 28 and 10 minutes long to be precise, so make sure you have an open hour open to give this bad boy a shot because listening to it half ass will give you such a limp one.
Complaints? None really, this is an absolutely fun record to listen to with the lights off and a pair of huge headphones, and if you're like me you'll be flung into a dirty, freezing cavern within minutes of listening, it's just a fun and to me a fresh take on black metal laced doom.
Another awesome thing is that you can get this for free: check it out.
SHIT RATING: GOOD
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