BLOOD CEREMONY
BLOOD CEREMONY “The Old Ways Remain”
By Octopi Mills
Ah, the damned thing opens up with "The Hellfire Club"....What can be said; that this sounds like it was from the 1970s- that it has that big dumb PENTAGRAM approach that works every time? The occult flood, for all its danger...it has opened up many a would-be-mage turned to chord a guitar after reading a yellowed paper back novel from legendary names Lovecraft, Howard, Machen, Dunsany, Poe, Blackwood, or James...Ah, this literary source on endless limitless damnation-this very Anglo, English thing. The sound is as always and not unlike a more dangerous JEFFERSON AIRPLANE married to TULL with Dennis Wheatley serving as high priest or Lord Summerisle. The audience would be hippies of old and new and one could expect to see old Gerald Gardener using a fair duster on a white, pale behind in place of a scourge like, no pun intended, in days of "old."
This old is of course a much created longing for a past that was but not quite. Gone are the old days of old for something reputedly older. Those days of people; masters like Bach, Paganini or the much-maligned Wagner...well, those days have been replaced with the electric guitar and band sound everyone conformed to for good reason. The days of the 70s after the 60s, that is what is happening here but blessed with the knowing and foresight of modernity. Who has not written "widdershins" in one way or another? I certainly have but the sound was not quite the same theme, and this is a point that will be lost like a great river in spring which cannot be crossed.
What we have here instead of the old masters is a band when bands were bands in the aforementioned eras; a total retro affair that goes back instead of forward. It is not an easy thing to do. Anyone familiar with this act knows Rise Above and the female vocalists and the things they do. Here they do all this, as always, delivering something new. We must remember Rise Above was Lee Dorrian of CATHEDRAL who brought us things like ELECTRIC WIZARD, UNCLE ACID, or WITCHCRAFT, making the label something to be more than respected in this genre. The haunting, old sound of the pipes makes it even more authentic. There is more of a 1960's sound at times, nearly commercial, but in a way as if a Rothschild was producing the album. Something like "Mossy Wood" is something in itself, and makes me think of old British shows made from text like the “Owl Service” or “Children of the Stones”.
Something like "The Song of the Morrow" is pagan folk rock at it's very core. I must say, this sounds older than ever, and I could have been fooled; even the very elect could be deceived. Old Pan will be referenced in that final song, make no mistake about it. This is more interesting and self inspired than most anything you will have heard come out this year or most of yesteryear.