Something evil resides in Portland, OR.  Something very evil indeed.  Deep beneath a dismal musical landscape choked with the corpses of thousands of stoner doom sludge acts, disturbing the beauty sleep of the pretentious Cascadian art-black metal do-gooders, the insanely grisly Ritual Necromancy is vomiting forth some of the most hoary, unholy Death Metal conceivable.  Being the antithesis of geographical musical trends is always admirable, and this band is creating some of the most terrifying Death Metal in America let alone the Pacific Northwest.  Their debut album Oath of the Abyss is a monumental accomplishment of disgusting decay firmly rooted in the Old School though I can’t think of any classic band in the genre that ever really approached this level of punishing torment.

To be certain, the field of bands putting out records in a similar style is getting a little crowded these days, but as with any sub-style of metal, there are a couple of bands standing head and shoulders above the rest and Ritual Necromancy, sounding more than a little like an American Portal, are surely one of them.  “Descent” and “The Chasm” both start out in insanely evil blasting fashion before denigrating into a morass of depraved, grinding doom bringing to mind the profane stylings of New Zealand’s Witchrist, and the closing title track is a perfect example of how this type of Death Metal effectively deconstructs an already harsh and non-musical type of music, breaking it down to an elemental vapor of incomprehensibly evil impulse.  Admittedly, the riffing here often runs towards the indecipherable and barbarity of this magnitude will probably always be an acquired taste amongst even the most dedicated Death Metal fan base, but I for one can’t get enough.

TRACK LISTING

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*Comments:

1.  Accretion
2.  Cacophonic Dementia
3.  Descent
4.  The Chasm
5.  Desecrated Omnipresence
6.  Penitence
7.  Consummating Crypts of Eternity
8.  Oath of the Abyss

Total playing time:  37:28

Release Date: November 15th, 2011
Label: Dark Descent Records

Ritual Necromancy - Oath of the Abyss

Reviewer: J. A. Burt

January 18, 2012