Here we have Finnish Death Metal done by way of the most crazy and evil Black Metal influences…. behold, Ritualhammer’s ‘Grand Pestilential Flame’. Balls to the wall high speed crushing annihilation, barbarian Black/Death that doesn’t steer the bulldozer into War Metal territory. This is music made by creatures of the night possessed and high on amphetamines. This band refers to their sound as Apocalyptic Evil Metal which is accurate, just twenty something minutes of getting rocked. This feels like Finland’s answer to the South American sound as filtered through classic Extreme Metal from the US and the hellish sounds of their own homeland scene.
The production is clear and heavy, the guitars are a nice mid point between not too thick or too thin, the drums sound big and abrasive. The rhythm section is tight and also have great stage names, ‘Mortuary Fukker’ on bass & ‘Fleshpulsar Nebula’ is holding down the drums. There’s an interesting use of almost operatic style clean vocals and very old school higher pitched epic Heavy Metal yells like Judas Priest or King Diamond. The vocals are loud in the mix and have a powerful presence.
The seventh song ‘Berzerkercircle’ has choppy thrashy guitars dicing and slicing with tendrils made of pure speed, the sound of a tank crashing through a forest while on fire, cooking the crew to death inside. The grand finale of ‘Grand Pestilential Flame’ is also the longest song on the album and my favourite here, the six minute plus ‘The Channeling Darkness’. A whirl of violence and motion like a wave of calvary pouring through a crack in the city walls washing over defences and defenders alike.
The album although short in runtime still manages to kept things in flux and dynamic, for instance the way the instrumental interlude ‘Edulretni’ plays into ‘Soils of the Evervenemous’, the prior opens at a mid paced tempo and is very heavy, you get a half breath of air in your lungs before you get tossed down the temple steps again immediately on the latter, which has these notable mocking laughter vocals.
If you showed this debut to someone who isn’t initiated into Extreme Metal they would simply perish. You have been warned.
‘Grand Pestilential Flame’ is a frantic and extremely erratic and to the point album proving whats already a known fact: Finland just pumps out great music. The Land of a Thousand Lakes may as well be known as The Land of a Thousand Riffs. If this is the first work by this band, things are looking great for what’s to come.
