Kill Ritual
The Serpentine Ritual

The ritual of the serpentine and it is in a killing ritual and all of that stuff, with several musicians from decently known bands enlisted in the similar bands section. It was born from the ashes of Imagika, and the talk of the town is that it is in the thrashy direction which might be correct or wrong, it has a snake on the cover though. And it is an album that has received quite a bit of good reviews around the web and I had to look long for one that wasn’t claiming that the album was a future classic or something close to it, many albums released these days are and one can wonder what will happen when they look back on the thousands of amazing albums released these years in the future, it is not like you can just name five or six timeless classics from each year now, some reviewers award something like twenty to thirty albums the top rating in a year. This has gotten some reviews near that highest rating but I do not agree with these guys claiming this is a timeless classic or close to it, it is not even near that.

It is a heavy/thrash metal album with a heavy sound and high pitched vocals, aggression plays a big part in it as well. The production is modern with a modern yet classical heavy/thrash metal sound, it is well produced I would claim and the eleven tracks shows for a decent variation over the playing time that lasts for near an hour. I would however say that the album does not stand out in any regard, it is a stylistically typical album of the genre. A classical sound without any superfluous ornamentations, simple and to the point one could claim as well.

So, well reviewed means it has to be great, right? No, it does not mean that as it seems like everyone on the internet overrates most music and this is no exception to me. Okay, lets firstly just state that this album is alright in most regards and it doesn’t suck and the songs aren’t awful, you can listen to it without vomiting, plain and simple. But it does not appeal to me at all, the songs feels a bit bland and like I have heard it all before and that time I am sure it was made better as well. So in most regards you can say that the music is okay but it still is boring as well, and it leaves me to question who it is for. Probably not me but I suppose that there are a few that enjoys the album considering the good reviews. Maybe if you like heavy metal with a touch of Bay Area sound.

But how do I summarise this album? And how do you write a decent text about something that just passes you by completely unnoticed and the only reflection I have done while listening to this album was that earlier today I thought: “this album is not good”. That quote is the only impression I recall from this album which is a collection of songs that does absolutely nothing to me which leads me to say that this is not a good album. “But wait a minute” you think now and recall the good reviews you might have read and that I mentioned, and they are there for sure so there might still be some merit to this album but I have my reservation considering internet’s ability to blow things out of proportion and exaggerate everything. So, you can find good reviews for this album on the internet, however, this is not one of them.