Notification of Impetuous Ritual’s debut release on Profound Lore was almost immediately prior to its actual release, so in a way
Relentless Execution of Ceremonial Excrescence was literally sprung on us un-expecting death heads. As with the recent explosion of Australian death metal bands (
Aethyrvorous,
Innsmouth,
Ignivomous,
Portal,
Cemetery Urn) over the last couple of years, Impetuous Ritual reach into the crushing depths of death/doom and mould together a chaotic monster of a record – the total apocalyptic atmosphere is in line with the genre’s greats, and the unique style that comes with being part of the Australian scene leaves a distinctive mark all over Impetuous Ritual’s work.
Being from Brisbane, huge similarities can be drawn between city-mates Portal – Impetuous Ritual in fact shares members with Portal. Now I must stress, despite having similar musical aims and sharing members, Impetuous Ritual are no Portal clone. While the closing passage of ‘Ceremonial Disembowelment’ reeks of
Swarth’s collapsing guitar lines, for the most part
Relentless Execution... diverges from Portal’s schizophrenic murk. Where an album like
Swarth is defined by its colossal riffs and pitter-patter drumming,
Relentless Execution’s rhythm section is highly frenetic and often comes off as mind-numbingly brutal – one could arguably associate Impetuous Ritual far more with Melbourne’s Ignivomous over Portal.
The disparate tempos found on the record give it a hugely versatile atmosphere – where certain tracks (‘Inexorable Blasphemies’) consist of a full out aural assault, others creep at a tangibly slow pace (‘Destitution’), at times recalling the splendour of
...Golgotha-era
Incantation, or even the forces of darkness that come with
dISEMBOWELMENT’s classic
Transcendence Into The Peripheral. What
Relentless Execution... has that really propels it to the forefront of death metal for me is the total sonic annihilation that it has to offer – after listening to such forceful tracks as ‘Unhallowed Ascendance Into Impurity’, little doubt is left in my mind that Impetuous Ritual are doing everything right in regards to their style of death metal.
