ALBUM REVIEW: Penitence – Ritual Clearing
Although there’s no shortage of bands in the US that draw inspiration from the Norwegian second wave sound, there are very few that are able to do it well and prevent their music from sounding stale. Connecticut’s RITUAL CLEARING are certainly one of those very few exceptions, crafting a sound that manages to borrow heavily from the tropes and style of classic black metal whilst injecting enough variety, imagination and energy into their music to make it feel engaging, as was brilliantly encapsulated in their self-titled debut EP in 2020. Their debut album, Penitence strips away what little fat was present on that EP, creating a lean and caustic effort that stands as one of the best pure black metal records of the year.
Burn starts things off with a blistering and melodic slab of black metal with frenetic drums, lean, biting guitar work and arid vocals all creating a tight and searing sounding right off the bat. It possesses a sound that is firmly rooted within classic black metal, but has lots of energy and underlying power to help bring an invigorating feel to this tried and tested formula and create a sprawling and impactful introduction to the record. The relatively short Penitence which immediately follows provides a briefer and more chaotic version of the style present on the opener, interjecting proceedings with a few slower, more doom-laden moments not unlike the opener’s second half, but mostly sticking to a harsher, more rabid sound peppered throughout with jarring leads and acerbic vocal performances that make this even more visceral.
Cold, Forever adopts a ponderous and melancholic tone, shifting away from the speed-driven approach of the first two tracks and opting for a mid-paced, ominous sound built around ethereal guitars, solid, rhythmic drums and spartan, feral vocals. These turn this into a far more dramatic and cavernous offering that gradually gathers momentum as its progresses, eventually reaching a darkly epic crescendo that makes this feel far more epic than preceding songs. Deathfog reverts to the sharper melodicism of the album’s earliest offerings, with slick, catchy leads vying with the cacophonous intensity of the rest of the music to create a varied sound that takes in savage ferocity and much more focused, punchy moments, bringing together the band’s aggressive and accessible sides in a way that works extremely well.
Void is a bleak, slow-burning affair that initially sounds a lot less fully formed than the four tracks that came before it, but quickly begins to move towards a much more muscular and weighty sound that manages to accentuate both the band’s caustic, angular components and their soaring, epic ones, making this a great, wide-ranging climactic effort that’s incredibly impressive. Mensis, much like the last track, first appeared on the band’s debut EP, and this newer version captures a lot of the strengths of the original whilst embracing a more polished, sharper sound. The dancing riffs and confident swagger instantly grab the listener’s attention, and the belligerent, bellicose sections further cement this as a powerful and noxious piece of music, meandering between fast and furious passages and ones that are far slower but more bombastic to showcase a band at the peak of their creative powers and bring this album to a conclusion on one of its more eventful tracks.
This is an incredibly solid debut album that boasts a lot of great music within it. The production quality on this record is a massive step up from their first EP, and the two songs that originally featured on it fit in extremely well with the four newer offerings, retaining just the right amount of rawness to make the sound as opaque as it can be, whilst giving it just enough polish to make it more accessible. It’s got all the hallmarks of a Scandinavian black metal record, but similarly possesses enough diversity and imaginative musicianship to keep things interesting for the listener, making plenty of room for melody and grandiosity in amongst the more cacophonous moments. RITAUL CLEARING have created a brilliant slab of black metal with Penitence, establishing themselves as a creative force within the US black metal underground.
Rating: 8/10
Penitence is out now via Eternal Death.
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