The one-man East Coast based death metal act known as, Vile Rites, delivers a downright brutal debut full-length titled, “Caverns of Occultic Hatred.” This album really captures the sickening bestial essence of devastating old school death metal by aggressively overwhelming listeners with insidious amounts of putrid distortion and cataclysmic blast beats.
Vile Rites offers a tremendous amount of monstrous sized guitar riffs, while throwing in some agonizing lead guitar parts when needed. I think what should be pointed out right away about this album is the extremely solid production. The way that this album was recorded makes you feel as though the instruments were recorded in some primordial cavern where all light is devoured by some unspeakable ominous dark force. From the beginning of the album until the ending, the songs simply give off this malevolent, yet mesmerizing vibe which reminded me a but of mid to late 90’s Morbid Angel. You can also hear influences from other death metal acts like Incantation, Morgoth and Demilich, but Vile Ritual does a great job not getting stuck recycling the same generic death metal compositions that you hear from some of the other new up and coming death metal acts.
In addition to the crushing riffs and devastating death growls, the haunting hellish atmospheric elements used throughout the release really add to the album’s deafening sound and inhumanly abhorrent lyrical themes. The intro parts to the opening song, “Formless,” is a very clever way to bring the listener through this surreal sounding void and into a thunderous landscape where the instruments consume you like a swarm of vile demons descending upon a small village. Songs like, “Aimless” and “Gyromancy,” feature some truly sickening riffs that perfectly compliment the barbaric death growls echoing across the musical carnage.
One track that really caught my attention was, “Manifestation,” because the ominous intro part reminded me of a terrifying supernatural horror film score, which then fades out to be completely annihilated by an agonizing guitar arrangement. The music starts out slow and takes on a very death doom like quality sweeping you away into this distorted void of hellish entropy. Towards the end of the album I’d say not much changes as the artist continues to pump out very vicious arrangements, while throwing in these eerily hypotonic atmospheric elements. The final two songs, “Living Hell” and “Void,” are a couple unbelievably solid offerings of ruthlessly bombastic death metal to wrap up Vile Ritual’s sonically destructive tale.
Working with Sentient Ruin Laboratories, Vile Ritual’s “Caverns of Occultic Hatred” will be released on June 16th, and I’d highly recommend fans of savage sounding extreme music to check the album out. I thought Vile Ritual did a great job not getting lost in a sea of random technicality, nor did the overall mix sound completely cluttered and horrendously arranged. For a one-man act I was extremely impressed by the songwriting, production and ability to come up with a unique sounding full-length release that does not simply copy similar sounding old school death metal riffs from past bands. In the end, Vile Ritual lays before the sacrilegious altar an album that deserves to be listened to as well as worshipped by all those who desire some hideous sounding light devouring death metal.
Check out the song "Living Hell" below:
Sentient Ruin Bandcamp:
https://sentientruin.bandcamp.com/album/caverns-of-occultic-hatred
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