Ritual Suicide – Nocturnal Haematolagnia (I Thought Those Guys Broke Up Raw Black Metal)
I thought those guys broke up? Ritual Suicide most certainly did call it the end in 2019, so what have we here in October 2020? Nocturnal Haematolagnia was finished before the band’s demise and we needed one last dose of this crazy Ukrainian black metal vampire attack before we called it quits, right? Perhaps, but that can depend on how you view this type of black metal. If you know me, you know I have a particular distaste for genre fans and their fanboy bands that continue to record in absolutely dismal lo-fidom and claim it’s for “aesthetic” purposes when in reality they’re all just stupid and the bands suck. But Ritual Suicide, though dwelling in territories dark with modular home crawlspace dungeon mildew, have a better grasp of how it can be an aesthetic, after all.
I’d heard of these guys before but I see “raw” and I begin to groan. But, still, the cover needed a review by itself so I gave it a shot. So you might wonder what makes this different than any other “raw black metal” release I’ve ripped on before. It’s quite easy to explain: accessibility. No matter how harsh the recording, no matter how glacial the vocals, no matter how metallic the drums, the real proof raw can be an aesthetic is whether or not it adds to the sound rather than take away from it so much that you have to pretend you hear something in it all. Ritual Suicide aren’t writing riffs that gain more than your basic approval, but it doesn’t matter, because the aesthetic here is, in fact, what actually matters. Vampiric, infantile, harsh, extremely underground, these things can work when the mind doesn’t have to work for it, but don’t expect more than it provides. It also, somehow, sounds leagues better when you blast the shit out of it than it does at lower levels. Intentional? Probably not, like most stuff that goes for the raw angle.
Ritual Suicide – Nocturnal Haematolagnia
Esfinge de la Calavera, Forever Plagued Records
Cover Art: Umbra Pestis
4.1 / 5
