Death Metal, bestial black metal, prog, psychedelia, ritualistic deliriums. All these elements form the surrealistic core formula which is the basis for Maryland’s bludgeoning one-man death metal enigma VILE RITUAL, a cerebral sonic disfiguration fuming to crack skulls open with neanderthalian violence and seek out the listener’s pineal gland to make it implode under the weight of pure psychedelic crush depth. The band has finally reached the milestone of its first ever debut full-length album “Caverns of Occultic Hatred”, which releases tomorrow June 16 2023 via Sentient Ruin and today we’re excited to show it to you in full for the first time ever via this exclusive full album premiere!
Antediluvian, Adversarial, Demilich, Archgoat, Von, Time Ghoul, Incantation, Chaos Echoes, The Chasm, Infester, .. the list goes on and on and on and we could sit here all day explaining the eternal dualism of influences which materializes this band’s sound, and all traveling along one common, dualistic, connecting thread: that of bestial, feral, animalistic carnage, traveling on a parallel line with elaborate, technical, and sophisticated songwriting shrouded in atmosphere and surrealism.
The formula is staggering in that it eliminates the predictability and traditionalism of adherence to subgenera, sprawling instead from end to end of the spectrum and devouring every extreme notion death metal has ever explored, from the primitive violence of Blasphemy to the contorted abstractions of Immolation, all the way to the gruesome prog-infused weirdness of Autopsy. The obvious “bedroom project” nature of the band conceived by sole mastermind LM has also given Vile Ritual free range in the studio to wander across an immense spectrum free from the writing constriction of conceiving songs with the live performance as their main genesis priority. This has materialized an album of truly unsettling and dismal traits, packed with overdubs and all kinds of studio tricks and atmospherics which greatly enhance its psychedelic load and its humongous aura of surrealism. But as you can see from the live footage below (from the band’s first ever live performance back in May), all this meticulous studio work has not been an obstacle whatsoever for Vile Ritual to be excellently transposed to a stage setting as a gruesome and unstoppable live act.
“Caverns of Occultic Hatred” releases tomorrow June 16 2023 via Sentient Ruin on LP, CD, tape and digital formats and can be ordered HERE or HERE.
