Hailing from Germany, SANCTIFYING RITUAL formed in 2008. The Sadistic Death demo followed a year later, but it would be another three years before the next demo, Carved in Rotten Remains, arrived. During that time, members were busy with such well-regarded cults as Nocturnal Witch and Division Speed, but SANCTIFYING RITUAL still burned in their black hearts. A four-song EP, Storm of Devastation, arrived in 2013 before the band would remain silent…
Alas, that hiatus is over and the fire burns ever black with SANCTIFYING RITUAL’s long-awaited debut album. Fittingly self-titled, Sanctifying Ritual is a grand culmination and intensification of SANCTIFYING RITUAL’s noble aesthetic. Here, the ancient winds blow, across proto-bestial metal and blackthrash alike, from berzerker ’80s death to blitzed-out speed metal also from the ’80s, from South American on up to the North and back over to their native Germania. The ingredients are all discernible and deadly, but not once do the quartet lean too heavily on one for too long, instead mixing ‘n’ mincing the malignant forces with enviable ease, pulsing with power and an acute dangerousness that’s all too rare in the nowadays underground. Each of these nine songs is its own piledriver, SANCTIFYING RITUAL’s metal inquisition staying ugly every step of the way, and the songwriting is thusly honed to exude the maximum violence & force. But, perhaps the album can best be summed up by the title of closer “Abominable Death Rebels”…
Ghastly and ghoulish, SANCTIFYING RITUAL beckon you into their crypt – submit and shed your skin!
Released by:
Iron Bonehead (Germany), 2020.
