Album Review: Ceremonial Bloodbath - The Tides of Blood
Reviewed by Paul Hutchings
If you compared music to film genres, then the debut album from Vancouver BC’s Ceremonial Bloodbath would rank in the higher echelons of brutal horror. Inhuman noises, bizarre shapes and utterly chaos driven shaped riffs, ‘The Tides of Blood’ is a harrowing and hideous journey into darkness. The eerie intro ‘Command Sacrifice’ is transported directly from a Hammer Horror movie, and despite its unnerving effect provides the only calm on an album that is intensely raw.
Ceremonial Bloodbath have drawn its members from Vancouver BC bands like Scum Division Cult, Nightfucker, Encoffinate, Radioactive Vomit, Grave Infestation, Mass Grave, Temple of Abandonment and Deathwinds. Maybe not household names by any stretch, but bands whose names certainly suggest this isn’t going to be some hair metal party. Instead, 46 minutes of grinding, unholy and hideous bastardised death metal that strains the sinews and eviscerates the soul. Opening song Primitive is a maelstrom of malevolence. Slicing guitars, relentless heavy riffs and punishingly frantic drumming combine with guttural, indistinguishable vocals in a cacophony that overwhelms within minutes.
The production is basic, the sound muffled with a distinct retro, almost primitive feel. ‘Book of Black Blessings’ sees the lead guitars struggling to rise above the sonic depravity that explodes, tracks like ‘Hordes of Demons Feeding’ drawing deep into the nihilism mountain.
The band comprises four shadow-like creatures. Bassist Adam Sorry, rhythm guitarist and growling demonic croaker Dave McGrea (also known as Dave Meat or merely D.M), the blast beating assault of Anju Singh (A.S) and the lead guitarist Graham Christofferson (G.S.). Together, they are responsible for one of the most brutal, explosive and thickly riff filled albums of 2020. There is no denying the darkened demented approach.
‘The Tides of Blood’ is the soundtrack of nightmares, but if you like your metal on the gnarly, bleeding side then ‘The Tides of Blood’ should be for you.
