Title: The Blade Philosophical
Label: Nuclear War Now! Productions
Release Date: 15 March 2018
Country: Canada
One of the big returns that are coming to us in this 2018. Probably many of you remember “Rites of Thy Degringolade”, a project of the great Paulus Kressman, who has managed to impress us behind the kit in Warmarch or playing live with Incantation. “Rites…” started as a one-man project in the late 90's, and after several albums of Blackened Death with a high dose of Noise and Avant-Garde textures, in 2005 they released "An Ode to Sin". A masterpiece of brutality, in which the dividing lines between Black, Death or Bestial Black metal became abysmally diffuse. Then, the silence, for almost 13 years, until arriving at the unexpected resurgence, as an apotheosic phoenix. "The Blade Philosophical" immerses us fully in an insane rite, frantic and excellently executed. We are talking about highly trained musicians here. As it happens in the last album of Portal, the production here is extremely polished, although the abrasive and chaotic nature of the music surrounds us in a framework of hyper-complex textures and multiple disharmonic layers of guitars that fluctuate, incessantly, between accents and changes of unexpected rhythms. The Blackened Death factor is very high, of course, but I like to see the proposal as a kind of "Avant-garde Bestial Black Metal" as well. Something that can be appreciated in the moments of full blast beats (the star here is Paulus, obviously, who also takes care of the vocals) which, added to the intrinsic complexity of the compositions, work like a totally insane and lacerating occult machine. It would not be strange to make a parallel between "Rites" and Deathspell Omega, due to a certain aura of occult etaphysics, inherent in the band's new lyrical approach, and its marked percussive characteristic in the most intense moments, although they manage to conjugate a distinct original personality in the process.
“Rites of Thy Degringolade” resurfaces, with a clear purpose: to position themselves, in a very solid way, on the altar of the most original and transcendent modern extreme music, and this album sounds incredibly militaristic, dissonant, overwhelming and ritualistic, in the best sense of the word. Undoubtedly, one of my favorite albums of the year and totally recommended for all lovers of extreme music. 9/10 Sergio
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9/10 Epic Storm
