The Black Dahlia Murder - Ritual

Published July 20 2011

*=Staff's pick	A Shrine To Madness Moonlight Equilibrium* On Stirring Seas Of Salted Blood Conspiring With The Damned The Window Carbonized In Cruciform Den Of The Piquerist Malenchantments Of The Necrosphere The Grave Robber's Work The Raven Great Burning Nullifier Blood In The Ink

Genre	Death Metal	Trevor Strnad	Vocals
Tracks	12	Brian Eschbach	Guitar
Runningtime	45 Min.	Ryan Knight	Guitar
Label	Metal Blade	Ryan Williams	Bass
Release	20 June 2011	Shannon Lucas	Drums
Country	USA	-	Keyboard
Producer	Mark Lewis/Jason Suecof
Similar artists	---

I will not make a secret about me liking The Black Dahlia Murder. A lot. It's very easy to like a gang that combines pure joy, grind and a sense for melody as this band does. I first fell for the band's more gnarly sides on breakthrough album Miasma and was totally floored by Deflorate from 2009. That the group totally delivered live has made me follow the band's exploits feverishly, which is why I became as happy as a pig in horseshit when Ritual came along.

I was no less happy when I had a few listenings done - what a development! Although the grindelement was there, I found so much more; the feel of 6/8 in opening A Shrine to Madness that despite back to back doublebassdrums from Shannon Lucas almost dances, Brian Strnad's almost extraterrestrial ability to switch from deep growl to high-pitched screaming and the fantastic joy in playing - a red line through the record - made me think that I would not have been disappointed if the band had stood on stage and played the record in its entirety.

The Ritual is a conceptalbum where the songs are part of a greater idea, but naturally there are a few tracks that stand out - already mentioned opener A Shrine To Madness, the single Moonlight Equilibrium, The Raven, Den Of The Piquerist and Blood In The Ink are all killer songs. It's very nice to discover that The Black Dahlia Murder now has reached the level where they can write very strong songs that manage to combine very gnarly playing and still make the record feel at ease with plenty of melodic playing and finesse. This combination makes it very probable for The Ritual to end up on my best of list for 2011.