Sadistic Ritual: Disregarding Labels, Encouraging Exploration
Psychedelic thrash is not a genre which you stumble across very often but it certainly piques curiosity to see just how the rip-roaring riffs can co-exist with the more easy-going experimental elements. Atlanta based outfit SADISTIC RITUAL somehow manage to splice it all together to concoct a masterful formula.
2019’s debut full-length Visionaire Of Death only scratches the surface of their frightening level of potential and their freshly released follow-up The Enigma, Boundless plans to follow this trajectory. “Visionaire Of Death was written entirely by myself and passed by the other members before Joe [Sweat, drums] came aboard so this release has been the first time that I’ve had someone to write ideas with,” explains frontman Charlie Southern. “It’s definitely a lot different and more of a group effort for sure. I feel like we solidified our lineup this time round.”
“We’re super proud of Visionaire but we really wanted to develop our sound this time,” adds drummer Joe Sweat. “With COVID and everything we had time to take a step back and focus on more unique songwriting. We went into it with no expectations or intentions of labelling anything. We just kind of let it happen and capture what was going on at the time. We all have psychedelic rock influences and wanted to pull those into this album as we felt that hasn’t really been touched on in our previous work or in thrash/extreme metal in general. We didn’t want to just make another zombie apocalypse song or something about Satan, we wanted to be more relatable.”
Like many bands, SADISTIC RITUAL appreciate the benefits of the DIY approach, fulfilling as many tasks as they can utilising their own unique skill sets. “The addition of our bass player, LaMar George was a big turning point for us,” states Joe. “He has written his own bass parts which we love and they fit incredibly well. He’s also a graphic designer and does all of our flyers and did the layout of the new record. Alex [Parra, guitars] also records us, he recorded the last two albums and also produced The Enigma, Boundless so everyone plays a big part and we feel like these are all key elements.”
One of the first things you will notice coming across this release is the rather eccentric album cover art. To some it may just look like a collection of random imagery but every piece of the puzzle was chosen and articulated to bring their vision to life, with a little outside assistance. “With every album cover we want to do something out of the box,” discusses Charlie. “For the first album we built that huge skull monument and for the second album we really wanted to go down the collage art route. Joe reached out to Erica Frevel who really knocked it out of the park.”
“It was a really cool collaborative process,” confirms Joe. “As we were writing the demos we’d send her them so she could help build this artwork piece by piece and we just kind of bounced off each other. It was a bit of an experiment but it really paid off. We wanted to do something different and make it colourful so that it sets us apart. We wanted to utilise the layering of real images stacked on top of each other to create that kind of paranoid, anxiety driven kind of image.”
As is the case with many bands who depend on touring for their main source of income and exposure to get their music out into the world, SADISTIC RITUAL have had to be patient for restrictions to lessen in order for them to put plans in place for the remainder of the year. We’ve seen some bands successfully navigate bouts of touring but it is still an uncertainty with the amount of financial risk involved. Festival lineups are changing on a daily basis with bands rethinking their strategies. When the time is ready the band are geared up and ready to hit the stage once again. “Metal is absolutely something which has to be enjoyed live,” declares Charlie. “I think that is our strong point too as we put a lot of effort into our live show. People have so much pent up energy and it’s a great release.”
The Enigma, Boundless is out now via Prosthetic Records.
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