Ritual NecromancyOath of the Abyss
2011 Dark Descent Records
The revival of old school death metal (for some of us, it's the only school) appears to be in full swing, and there is a definite division between how Sweden and the United States is going about it. You'd think that after all this time that maybe the Stockholm sound would have migrated to the US, and our sound would have popped up there. The thought being, of course that the grass is greener on the other side. While we were dreaming of seeing bands like God Macabre or Utumno, overseas they were dreaming of Sadistic Intent. But no, Sweden still retains their signature sound, while here in the US, bands are intently focusing on the sludgy sound of old Incantation. Disma and Father Befouled being two of these. Ritual Necromancy though, are at least trying to take a bit of a different road. Vocally, you may have a guy doing his best Craig Pillard imitation, and the mix may lend itself to the suffocating atmosphere of Incantation, but the guitar tunings have even more distortion, while the drummer likes to blast as often and as much as possible. These guys really went for a production that sounds like the album was recorded in a cave, under the supervision of Cthulhu himself. Didn't know the Great Old One was an engineer, did you? At times, things do get almost a little too heavy, and the sound suffers a bit for it, as if the equipment just couldn't handle the devastation. While I don't believe that the band was going for the same deliberate stereo destroying sound that Exit-13 did many years ago, I would still recommend that you proceed with caution in how loud you play it.
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