Rites of Daath, previously known as Cemetery Whore, are of Krakow, Poland. This is one of my favourite cities on earth. Not only is the eating some of the best in Poland (and therefore, the planet – top tip – if there eat at “Bar Smak”), but there is a healthy and well established metal scene in the city, with some great shops there too to cater for those of us with a metal persuasion.

This six track rager is of the doom / death variety, though with both feet definitely in the “things being played very heavy” camp, rather than the violins-and-lace-hankey crying-about-your-girlfriend end of the spectrum. To be fair, Rites of Daath are heavier than about 90% of anything I’ve reviewed this year (and this has been a heavy year so far), and they haven’t skimped on being relentless purveyors of busy cacophony. Oh, did I say “busy” ? What I meant to say was “almost indecipherably dense and complex”. To put it mildly, there is a lot going on in each of these songs. Opener and title track, “Doom Spirit Emanation” sounds as if the band are playing four different tracks concurrently, but just happen to start and finish at the same time. The drums, for instance, are playing in a such a fashion as to remind one of a drunkard playing the skins in the back of a moving car being driven by someone with sudden and erratic tics. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, of course – and I mean no insult (the drum intro to “The Accursing Tongues” is fantastic), but it is somewhat of an acquired taste.

I looked at the track listing, and saw that “Primeval Depths of Chaos” was coming up – and despite the title, saw that the song itself was almost eleven minutes long, and thought to myself, “at least this one will be a little less frantic”. Nope. Not at all. If anything, this has about three albums worth of different song ideas crammed into this tiny space. There are some great, great moments through this album – some of the same kind of cavernous, evil atmosphere that the likes of The Chasm had built their career on, but then combined with having some of the most frantic, heavily wrought guitar work that I have ever listened to. Once they manage to restrain themselves long enough to concentrate on a single idea (2:30 into “Primeval Depths of Chaos” is a good example), they produce some really quality moments – but before long they’ve uprooted the whole kitchen sink, done a run through of Plumber Centre and then chucked the whole damn shebang into the mix. Frankly, quite often there’s just too much going on here.

Production wise, this is a pretty powerful if slightly muddy mix, with the feedback producing some much-needed slicing through the murk from time to time. Vocals are, for the most part, great, and the drum sound really effective when it can be heard above the din. For me, the guitars are just far too high in the mix and dominate everything, which may be while I have found this to be quite a difficult listen. As an album, it sits just on the cusp of being able to pull it all together, but could do with some self-restraint from the band in simplifying things and bringing a bit of clarity to the proceedings. As it is, it feels like there are some great moments, but they’re smothered by a lack of self-editing and song-writing.

(6/10 Chris Davison)

https://www.facebook.com/ritesofdaath

https://godzovwarproductions.bandcamp.com/album/doom-spirit-emanation