Impetuous Ritual – Unholy Congregation Of Hypocritical Ambivalence
An abundance of death metal bands today translate the stuff of nightmares into sonic anti-glory, but only a handful can transmute “creepy sound” novelty into repeated plays. Something has to lie beneath samples of screams and detuned-into-being-indecipherable riffs for future visits to occur, and while the specifics of that ‘something’ can be argued, its essence cannot: music and any accompanying ephemera must result in a cohesive and (at least mildly) memorable song to remain in the mind. Here Impetuous Ritual succeed where others fail. When I first spun the band’s 2009 debut Relentless Execution of Ceremonial Excrescence, I found myself enthralled with more than the murky, gut-churning aspect of the guitars; it was where the guitars were heading, where their clangor was leading that brought that sought after feeling of anticipation metal fans feel when they know a track’s “cool part” is coming. Now, with their latest release Unholy Congregation Of Hypocritical Ambivalence, that same sense of anticipation has been recreated, and while the effect can’t be completely separated from that given by their shared members in Portal, Impetuous Ritual’s choice of barely-there continuity over complete chaos ignites in the listener that singular wish to listen longer and more often. This continuity, in the form of song structures somewhat discernible against the cooling lava of sounds, enables Impetuous Ritual to deliver on the promise of their sculpted anticipation when their tremolo guitars coalesce with slow, doom style beats, when their whammy-bar panned-left-then-right leads dissolve until bloody screams, and when their forlorn, single-note palm mutes land on equally lonely and sparse floor tom hits. After the first play through, you’ll understand how the music found on Unholy Congregation Of Hypocritical Ambivalence (unlike that of any of Impetuous Ritual’s better known brethren) concerns itself with far more than chaos alone. Through constructed anticipation and bedeviled deliverance, Impetuous Ritual evokes what chaos leaves behind: desolation and, ultimately, emptiness. -Jim
Profound Lore Records
Worm Gear 