Bloodfeast Ritual – Altars of Sacrifice
Self-release
In their debut EP Altars of Sacrifice, Los Angeles band Bloodfeast Ritual serve up the guts and glory of old school death metal alongside a variety of death metal styles.
With relentless energy throughout each song, the 20-minute EP perseveres with a battery of brutality mixed in with many melodic moments. In the opening track Grave Fodder, the very-Swedish death metal influence shines through. Many unison riffs in the higher register initially present the band similar to one like Arch Enemy – with epic choruses and bright solos – the song provides a lot of heft among the beauty.
That beauty, however, somewhat disappears within the next song title: Eternally Molested By The One Most Foul. With the band still reeling Swedish death influences, the song itself begins to show a different sound the band is going for. With an influence more similar to the band Death, the song features lots guitar prowess while still being a cohesive song. Riffs and chugging dominate the majority of the song with more-shredding than melodic solos in-between.
And yet, the style changes yet again, rather smoothly into classic death metal with No More Room in Hell. Featuring some of the more guttural vocals on the album, the music also feels heavier. The layered vocals hearken to Aborted, but the music to something like Cannibal Corpse. Fast and devastating, the lyrics even evoke the scenes from Dawn of the Dead: “Eat them one by one / Feast upon the intestines / Smell of death fills the air.”
The heaviest song on the album, Chopped Up and Burned, is the song with the most weight. Blast beats abound, the darkest lyrics, the dirtiest riffs: the song has it all. The very traditional death metal sound is the clear inspiration for the song, with some of the more fast and intense solos the album has to offer.
Concluding the EP with the shortest track, Fetid Offering is the “newest-sounding” song on the album, with melody similar to the first track and guttural vocals reaching some of the higher registers, almost becoming screams. The song ends the EP on a high note with a steady growing, epic-feeling conclusion which somewhat contrasts the rest of the album.
With plenty of ideas mixed together as an EP, it shows many different avenues Bloodfeast Ritual can take. Although each song is brilliantly constructed, as a cohesive whole, the listener may get mixed messages to what the sound the band really wants to achieve.
Consistently brutal and relentlessly thrashy, Bloodfeast Ritual’s Altars of Sacrifice is an impressive and intense debut showcasing the many musical influences and songwriting prowess the band has to offer.