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Ritus > Von nächtlichen Gedanken > Reviews
Ritus - Von nächtlichen Gedanken

Not good but also not bad - 59%

oneyoudontknow, October 5th, 2008

One facet, merely one small element, can be the straw that broke the camel's back and accordingly it can turn something neat into something awful. Speaking of such, in terms of the first release of Ritus from Germany the most ambivalent aspect of the entire demo are the vocals ... again. Yes, bands face several problems today and they either deal with the drums, due to the lack of musicians a horribly programmed drum-computer is used, or with the oral expression of the lyrics. Everyone is capable of giving words some kind of a sound, but the outcome of this does not always lead to an audible and enjoyable performance; often the outcome is closer to a pure torment and in case with «Von nächtlichen Gedanken», the vocals by «Geist» are certainly not far away from this description... at least in sometimes. Not only do they appear extremely bloodless, even worse is their resemblance to a mixture of croaking and screaming. Something similar can certainly been found in the suicidal/depressive subgenre of the black metal scene and even though it is good to see a variation in the approach to express the lyrics, not merely screaming, the room left to improve the performance is not really small.

Would it not be for this one facet, then «neat, interesting and pretty enjoyable» might be an adequate description of this release. Yet, the matters lie different and the impact of the vocals overshadow all of what might be pointed towards as positive on Ritus' debut release. In terms of the music Ritus is able to offer the listener a good deal of variation in tempo and arrangements; the tempo ranges from slower passages up to fast ones. With some amount of catchiness in the compositions the band is able to keep the atmosphere up, even though some plain passages appear now and then, but these have no graven effect on how the music is perceived. The riffs are quite interesting, the way the songs build up is also not bad and the amount of repetition is also not excessively. Unlike a lot of bands Ritus is able to add some nice drum motives and especially «Die Nacht okkulter Riten» has some nice rhythms, but the contrary can be said of the pre-/ succeeding songs. Generally does the music switches between faster and mid-tempo passages, whereby the band is able to keep everything in a 'flow'. In terms of the production it can be noted that the quality varies or better said, the balancing is not optimal. Especially the drums are affected by this, why the bass-drum is occasionally drowned by the snare and cymbals; leaving the music bass-less, as the bass (guitar/drums) is nowhere to be found.

What is left to say? Well, there are some nice moments, but the room left for improvement is not such tiny that it could be drawn under the curtain; and it is necessary to emphasize this. If the band ran out of drugs or took too many while proceeding with the recordings towards the end of the last track remains hidden, but the awful screams are something the band should deal with as youth transgression and lay them to rest... please; hopefully together with the occasionally pointless double-bass texture. To conclude: the concept does not need to be revamped entirely, but more than a polishing of the surface would be a neat thing to see respectively hear. Nice moments and potential are there, but the overall concept in the current situation is not as such as to please me.