I didn’t know what to expect when I first put Absent Ritual on. The name was new to me and the title, ‘The Cryptic Descent: A Compilation of Madness’, doesn’t exactly give you much idea where the music is going. After the first listen, I went back again because there was more going on here than the usual Black Metal formula.
Absent Ritual are a three-piece from New York, and this March 2026 release is their first demo. Three songs, around twenty minutes, released by Eternal Death on cassette and digitally. That’s about all you really need to know before pressing play because the music does the rest.
The opening track, ‘Darkness Divine’, starts in territory that will be familiar to anyone raised on old Black Metal, but the guitars soon start pulling the song in different directions. The leads are a big part of the character here. They aren’t there simply to decorate the riffs, and some of them have a distinctly psychedelic feel that gives the song a strange quality without losing the aggression.
‘Ruiner’ is where things get really interesting. Nearly ten minutes long, it gives the band plenty of space to slow things down and let the bass and guitars take over. There are heavier, Doom Metal-tinged sections alongside passages where the guitar seems to wander off on its own. It doesn’t feel like a song that was written to fit neatly into a particular genre. It develops as it goes, and that makes the length work.
‘A Savage Rage’ takes another turn, bringing in darker psychedelic and almost dungeon-like passages. This is probably the strangest piece on the demo, but it still belongs to the same world as the first two tracks. There is a sense that the band are more interested in following an idea wherever it takes them than making sure everything stays inside the expected boundaries of Black Metal.
That’s what kept me coming back to this release. There are plenty of bands that can play old-school Black Metal convincingly, but Absent Ritual aren’t content to stop at the obvious references. You can hear the Black Metal foundation, but also the influence of older Heavy Metal, Doom Metal and psychedelic music, particularly in the guitar work.
The recording has enough roughness to retain that underground character without making the music difficult to follow. The bass is audible, which becomes particularly important during ‘Ruiner’, and the guitars have enough space for the leads to actually make an impression. Nothing feels excessively polished.
For a first demo, ‘The Cryptic Descent: A Compilation of Madness’ is a strange little release in the best sense. It doesn’t give you twenty minutes of the same riff dressed up in different clothes. Each song has its own personality, and the longer second track gives the band room to show that they have more ideas than simply playing fast and raw.
This is one of those releases I would put on when I want something from the Black Metal underground that isn’t going to follow the usual path from beginning to end. Absent Ritual have only given us three songs so far, but there is enough here to make me interested in hearing what they do with a full-length.
