This is the debut album from US black metal band Tómarúm.
Featuring a member of The Ritual Aura, and session members from Inferi and Virvum, Ash in Realms of Stone Icons contains 60 minutes of progressive black/death metal. Continue reading “Tómarúm – Ash in Realms of Stone Icons (Review)”
In Asymmetry are an international death metal band and this is their debut album.
Featuring current and ex-members of bands such as The Ritual Aura, Deeds of Flesh, Arsis, Eschaton, Pillory, Inanimate Existence, and The Kennedy Veil, Ashes of Dead Worlds contains a lot of experience packed tightly into its 34 minutes. Continue reading “In Asymmetry – Ashes of Dead Worlds (Review)”
Winds of Plague are a deathcore band from the US and this is their fifth album.
Winds of Plague aren’t your average deathcore band, I’m very pleased to tell you. Here’s a band that have kept the core brutality of the style intact, while spreading their wings with symphonic/orchestral elements and bursts of melodic aggression. Continue reading “Winds of Plague – Blood of My Enemy (Review)”
This is The Ritual Aura’s second album. They are an Australian technical death metal band.
Well, hold on to your hat, because you won’t be expecting this.
The Ritual Aura’s 2015 debut album Laniakea was a favourite of mine. At only 26 minutes in length it was a supremely enjoyable blast of cutting-edge death metal. Tæther is, to say the least, a lot more ambitious, lasting over 70 minutes in length. In many ways this seems like a different band altogether. Continue reading “The Ritual Aura – Tæther (Review)”
This is the début album from Australian Technical Death Metallers The Ritual Aura.
This is sci-fi themed Death Metal that takes the listener on a brutal and dizzying journey that may only last 26 minutes but is definitely worth the effort.
After an ominous piano intro, the first song Ectoplasm starts and it’s clear we’re in for a world of extreme technicality.
The Ritual Aura excel at combining hyperspeed wizardry with blazing melody and brutal inflections. Elements of bands such as Death and Necrophagist can be heard in their sound, as well as a much more modern style, such as can be found being played by bands like Rings of Saturn, The Faceless and Infant Annihilator.
This is imaginative music that takes its sci-fi theme and creatively incorporates this into the melodies, creating some quite unusual electronica/games-soundtrack-esque sounds that manage to avoid everything that’s usually wrong with bands when they try to do something like this. It sounds like a natural extension of the chaotic-yet-melodic music without sullying it with words like “novel” or “gimmick”.
Although it’s the music that is the central focal point here, the band would not be as enjoyable if they didn’t have vocals. The singer uses surgical growls and unhinged, savage screams. Although not as colourful as the music, (the human voice just isn’t capable), he does a great job of anchoring everything in place and providing a brutal linchpin while the music is off exploring unknown heights and realms. Clean vocals make a very brief appearance on Erased in the Purge, and these are a welcome addition to the mayhem.
Laniakea is short and to the point, resulting in an album that doesn’t outstay its welcome. In fact, I’m more than happy to have this around again to blow the cobwebs off the competition. There’s an energy level and an excitement factor to this music that makes a lot of more generic bands sound quite stale by comparison.
Great stuff. I can’t recommend this highly enough.
Wonderbox Metal 