Fathomless Ritual is born.
Created by Canadian multi-instrumentalist B. Dean, known for bands such as Gutvoid, Fumes, Wexler’s Prime and Pukewraith, the project immediately signed to Transcending Obscurity Records for the release of its debut album, Hymns For The Lesser Gods.
Illustrated with a gouache by Brazilian painter Marcio Blasphemator (Autophagy, Hatevomit, Hellripper, A Forest of Dreams…), the album is simply chaotic, yet incredibly precise. Every riff is as precise as it is dissonant, allowing Death Metal influences from all horizons to collide in a thick and oppressive Old School mix that also welcomes cavernous growls and an uncompromising blast to complete the imbroglio of violence.
Over the course of these eight tracks, lasting just under forty minutes, the musician’s tortured guitars take us for a ride, sometimes adding a bit of devastating groove, as on Grafted to the Chambers of Mirth, a composition with abrasive, howling leads, or devastating double kick eruptions, as on Exiled to the Lower Catacombs. Confusing for neophytes, the whole remains extremely coherent, and every second spent in this bath of molten lava makes us realize this, as in the opening moments of Cosmic Reflections from the Basin of Blood, where the instruments immediately adopt a very effective approach, even placing a solo with surprising futuristic sounds before returning to the raw strikes, while remaining anchored in a complex and worked riffing. The final track Gifts for Aranaktu features a more massive moshpart at the end, which also allows the leads to start evaporating into the background, leaving silence to gradually take its place.
Fathomless Ritual is in the tradition of dissonant Progressive Death Metal, where chaos rhymes with mastery and complexity. Nothing is left to chance in Hymns For The Lesser Gods, and although the album is best reserved for fans of the style, it is truly powerful.
80/100