ZIGGURAT - Ritual Miasma
March 28, 2018, 6 years ago
(Blood Harvest)
Israel's Ziggurat go hard on this 20-minute release, the band's dark black/death just steamrolling once first song proper “Summoning The Giant Serpent” begins, the word “miasma” in the name of this release promising a bestial metal of death, but instead of suffocation the band uses some surprising uplifting guitar melodies to carry the song along. It's a great twist, but it by no means takes away from the sheer power at hand: check out the switch from insane DM to absolutely insane DM that goes down from 2:02 to 2:04 of this excellent opening track, which goes on for almost five minutes but never once gets tiring, the incredibly abrupt ending a wonderful way to end off what might be the extreme metal song of the year.
It's an incredible way for the band to introduce themselves to the world here on their debut, which originally came out on cassette on Caligari Records in October of last year. Not that the other songs are slouches by any means: “Blind Faith” delivers punk-like levels of energy and tempos, and “Death Rites Transcendence” is an instrumental with epic results, and a great way to end the release. The 20-minute runtime works for the band, as they deliver a huge burst of energy and bugger off before anyone can even think about getting restless. But I have no doubt they'll manage to make their debut full-length just as engaging.
