Beats and yelling: Ceremonial Worship

Ceremonial Worship: Between Sleep and Death
Out 31^st July on Eternal Death

Undergoing something of an orchestral refit since their previous offering ‘Seven Gateways to Eternal Misanthropy’, the promo blurb accompanying this Greek’s outfit’s latest offering makes a lot of their…Greekness. And whilst they certainly do channel the intangible arcane sensation inherent to early Greek black metal, the bulk of this music looks more like the strife and fury of Gorgoroth, maintaining a captivating imposition on the listener as it weaves out frantic yet epic passages of melodically minimalist black metal threaded through with distinctively characterful riffs drawn as much from thrash as Nordic tremolo runs.

Comparing the production to the previous effort is chalk and cheese. Whilst I praised the thin, near lawless delivery on ‘Seven Gateways to Eternal Misanthrope’, here Ceremonial Worship have upgraded their software in every sense of the word, to the point of almost feeling like a new entity entirely. Whilst hardly slick, the mix presents a powerful force blistering across the speakers. The guitar tone, whilst somewhat trebly, is at once sharp and meaty, imbuing the music with an unmistakably black metal flavour without losing clarity within the percussively delivered chord sequences. Equally the drums are given a significant presence within the mix, lending the music muscle and momentum without overpowering it. This, alongside the echoey, crisp vocal creates a compelling balance of majesty and muscle playing out across the entire presentation.

The key to the success of this album is chiefly in the delivery. The music itself is rudimentary yet effective. Simple ideas repeated in logical sequences before meeting with a counterpoint that develops events towards a moment of tension, all to be brought together to a conclusion. Part blackened thrash, part traditional second wave, delivered with a mystical character only the Greeks seem to be able to give voice to. First wave elements, most notably some Bathory riffs, also make their voices heard. The overriding philosophy is drawn from the activist division of black metal. Not in the political sense, but in terms of the stark reaction it provokes within the listener. For all its captivating regalia, this is not music to zone out to, not the music of stasis and wilderness. This is warlike, fanatical, and reverential in equal measure.

Despite the intensity of the performance and overall delivery, the concoction on offer is varied, and refreshed at frequent enough intervals to give rise to an album both intense yet multi-faceted. There are many stops across black metal history along the way. But each are manipulated into an overarching vision of richly realised music that feels both ancient yet urgent. All of which amounts to one of the great successes of the genre this year, coming from a rather unexpected corner.