Australia’s Impetuous Ritual have solidified their place in their country’s tradition of taking death metal to its outermost limits. They’ve taken a Panopticon-like approach (the idea, not the band), and built cavernous walls of perpetually howling guitars; were it not for drums blistering in the deep background, it would be formless. It does not seem like a sound that would lend itself to progression, but then again, Impetuous Ritual do not progress in the conventional metal sense. Growing as a metal band usually entails getting more melodic, working in more prog and experimental elements, or going for a more commercial sound. Blight Upon Martyred Sentience, their third full-length, is as impenetrable as their first two, while advancing in the only way they could—getting even more extreme.
Blight begins how 2014’s Unholy Congregation of Hypocritical Ambivalence ended: a churn that feels inescapable, where the band is wearing you down gradually. Guitarists Ignis Fatuus and Omenous Fugue, both members of avant-death metal band Portal, blossom and decay throughout, sounding like they’re both building and disintegrating at the same time. It makes the next two songs, “Apoptosis” and “Inordinate Disdain”—both faster, chaotic tracks—feel more restless. The former lashes out suddenly; death metal’s familiar atonality gets severed and floats like a pack of malevolent ghosts. Throughout, the guitarists throw out lead patterns without warning, and they are more noticeable than on previous Impetuous Ritual records, where they were buried. Unholy was defined by its devotion to an unending marathon of down-tuned rhythm; Blight is more about smashing through that foundation.
Ignis Fatuus’ vocals are so low they’re sometimes barely indistinguishable from the guitars, similar to how Will Rahmer of Mortician blends his guttural voice with his bass. While Impetuous Ritual does have (scant) lyrics, Blight effectively functions as wordless music. (Their song titles are impeccable death metal word salad, though, an example that metal thrives on absurdity, inadvertent or not.) That isn’t unusual for death metal, where comprehension comes close to dead last, and it’s also true of Impetuous Ritual’s previous work, though Blight makes the case that vocals can really be a textural element. In reverse, when the guitars shriek in a higher register, they create an interplay with Fatuus’ vocals. “Synchronous Convergence,” in particular, shows how the guitars and vocals trade off like singers. You can recommend Blight to more metal-inclined Cocteau Twins fans as easily as Incantation diehards.
Blight is a more grueling affair than its predecessor. And yet, across the album, it’s also easier to trace Impetuous Ritual’s lineage. The brutality currently emanating from Australia is so far on metal’s fringes that it looks nothing like any form of rock music, and more like noise with metal instrumentation. But in bringing the leads up in the mix—“leads” here meaning anything deviating from the churning rhythm, not always in the classic metal sense—Impetuous Ritual show their debt to Sadistik Exekution guitarist Reverend Kriss Hades, who conjured million-note flurries on an ultra-scalloped guitar. They also nod to Bestial Warlust’s Joe Skullfucker and K.K. Warslut’s “war metal,” which simplified black metal into a faster and freer form. Bestial Warlust has long been inactive, and Sadistik Exekution isn’t likely to reform after a sluggish one-off reunion in 2009, which leaves Impetuous Ritual to spearhead a new direction in metal barbarism, for their country and abroad.
