Hearing Cult Ritual’s self titled long player only results in questions – well after you get over the fact that music appears to be more thoughtful than a huge portion of the hardcore getting attention today, or yesterday. As a disclaimer, though, my depth of knowledge in this particular strain of music doesn’t run that deep. I mean, I saw Sex Vid…once. They blew stuff up. It was rad.
But what’s a crust tempo? And what’s noisy hardcore? I suppose it’s gotta be relatively difficult commenting upon a musical genre that doesn’t really possess the ability to move forward in time and instead opts to renegotiate the same tropes being mined for the last thirty years or so. But that could be said about any music. What’s odd, though, is that over the last ten years, dudes in hardcore bands have sought to incorporate a handful of other musical styles – well, on occasion at least.
Cult Ritual, upon a cursory listen won’t come off as a band that attempts to expand the genre that it’s come to call its own. That’s just the first few tracks on this disc, though. The first two-thirds of Cult Ritual’s album finds itself concerned with songs not moving past the two minute mark. And yes, that’s a genre expectation. Without thinking too much about any of these songs, it’d be safe to figure that this is what passes for the most underground of underground hardcore acts.
Over the course of the first forty seconds of “Holiday,” though, it’s all just a hazy, feedback excursion. Shifting into what folks would expect from a group issuing work through Youth Attack Records, though, finds Cult Ritual’s singer coming off as a new age Rollins. It’s trite to invoke Black Flag while writing on the genre, admittedly, but seriously, that’s the only real vocal comparison.
Discussing the remaineder of the first few songs here isn’t going to yield too much insight, or flowerly writing. It’s in the disc’s final three tracks where the production moves from good hardcore stuffs into an odd appreciation of space (Miles Davis?) and simplicity.
Invoking the name of a jazzbo trumpet player is gonna seem odd, but “Saturday's Blood” almost necessitates it. For nearly half the track, there’s nothing but a drum beat predicated on the floor tom taking up huge amounts of space within the composition. It might not have been conceived to reference one of the most influential American musicians in history, but that’s how it works – until, of course, the track apes its band’s natural inclinations. Surely, it becomes something of wrote representation of the genre, but introduced in such startling terms, the track’s a monsterous experiment.
The following track works in much the same way, only the guitar is utilized in lieu of that drum kit. Remarkably, the twelve minute closer “Cancer Money,” which should have inherent space to experiment doesn’t deliver. There are, however, endless layers of production here and a bit of acoustic guitar (I think). But does all of that mean Cult Ritual’s attempting to smarten up a decidedly guttural genre? It doesn’t matter, it’s all boss sounds.