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RITUALIZATION
Hema Ignis Necros EP

Iron Bonehead Productions (2022)
Rating: 8/10

Hema Ignis Necros is the latest EP from French black / death onslaught Ritualization. This is fast, furious and foaming in its devastating flurries; think Nile, Vader et al with huge dollops of Morbid Angel and that’s what you get.

It’s been five years since the band’s debut full-length Sacraments To The Sons Of The Abyss, which has become sandwiched between this and the 2013 EP Beyond The Shrine Of Shattered Bones, but as you can clearly here, the wait has been worth it. The combo has literally been salivating to get out of the blocks as the solos squeal wildly amidst the perverse storms of riffs and percussive mayhem.

There’s an element of weirdness to this three-track affair as the band brings that same, slightly unorthodox and pertinacious manner which made classic Morbid Angel so dense and hideous. Opening track ‘The Shapeless Scepter’ is ten-minutes of torrential death metal downpour. The vocals of Warchangel are uncompromising in their hostility; hellish barks through primal winds of instrumentation. At times the track has the effect of a malfunctioning engine room spitting electricity, spewing bolts, and maniacally disappearing up its own arse. Some may argue it’s a jumble sale of unrelenting extremity, but the fact these guys have come up with such hazardous waste is testimony to their own crazed imaginations.

Sure, there are occasional flirtations with slower yet equally clammy diversions, but for the most part this is a hailstorm of vengeful, sniping black / death excreted in retaliation for being in the shadows for too long. I’ve spent several listens just trying to concentrate on the meandering solos, but each time I feel as if I’ve become castrated by the eternal chomping and scurrying noise around them; Messrs Infamist and Da’ath to blame for such floods of menace.

Like the opener, ‘The Crown Of Moloch’ churns with equal upheaval as Blastum lives up to his name with harrowing percussive torment while Daethorn’s bass is clearly used as an instrument of ear torture. Along with closing track ‘When The Chalice Runneth Over’, the trio of tunes are all lengthy but actually feel far shorter due to their blazing aggression. My only quibble here is the overlong outros, but for foreboding hostility you won’t hear a more pulverising example of blackened death metal this year.

I couldn’t lend my ears to Ritualization on a daily basis, but just to become entangled in the horrid lair of a track such as ‘When The Chalice Runneth Over’ is a privilege and a horror, because there are times when one cannot imagine how this quintet could rehearse such disorder, and that’s a compliment to their chaos strategy and designs of pandemonium. Ritualization have certainly announced their return with a beast of an EP – brace your ears for Armageddon.

Neil Arnold

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