RITUAL MASS – cascading misery LP purple blue merge (B2)

lim-. purple/sea blue merge vinyl (B2)

The debut full length album from Pittsburgh’s Ritual Mass is more than a collection of songs, it’s a series of calculated assaults on the virtue of the holy. Evolving beyond earlier EP and demo releases, ‘Cascading Misery’, encapsulates the bludgeoning infliction of pain and the slow peel of skin by flame, rife with both sonic chaos and extinguished hope.

From the outset of album opener ‘Obsidian Mirror’ the atmosphere is oppressive, thick with a suffocating malaise. There is a sense of something ceremonial at work but not in a way that seeks communion. Rather it’s ordeal as sacrament. Riffs strangle and churn into convulsive submission, oscillating from slow agony to psychotic break, over which a guttural lament so savage it freezes the blood is wrenched through dungeon stone. Each track unfolds like time spent in isolation, bound by chains, the mind slowly unraveling and surrounded by memories of torment both real and imagined.

By the time the epic 14-minute album closer ‘Disquiet’ dissipates into a mass of formless static Ritual Mass have dragged you into a world where suffering is not an end but a condition of existence. ‘Cascading Misery’ is music for the dissolution of hope, the terror of being, and the long march toward death.

Tracks:

1. Obsidian Mirror
2. Immeasurable Hell
3. Looming Shapeless Entity
4. Cascading Misery
5. Frozen Marrow
6. Disquiet

Genres: Death Metal

GPSR Information:
Manufacturer:
Integral Music / Virgin Music Group BV
’s-Gravelandseweg 80, 1217 EW Hilversum, Netherlands
Kundenservice(at)integralmusic.com