Rites
Negative Reflections

This album reeks of sulfur. (So, the perfect album to play on your home stereo during the holidays)

We last left the Rites project with Letter To D(E)ad, and here it resurfaces in the same month of December with this Negative Reflections. The themes haven't changed: letters written by people remembering their deceased loved ones, in this case with suicide as the cause of death. Everything has become much slower and darker, the funeral doom metal/sludge has shifted almost to the edge of drone doom metal (Khanate?), a single track lasting 31 minutes with a monotonous riff and drum beat repeating endlessly.

The opening feels almost like a bright flash in the storm, only to give way to the ultra-slow drums and the long-winded lyrics with sick growling parts and the usual hyper-compressed, frantic screeches in depressive black metal style. Now it resembles Nortt’s works more than the depressive style of bands such as Shining or Forgotten Tomb.

If Letter To D(E)ad was for a select few, this Negative Reflections is for even fewer—only for those who adore mammoth, excessively ugly and tasteless things, and for those who love to wallow in the murky. There’s not much more to say; there’s a good chance that those who listen will be disgusted by such a blend of elements (themes, vocals, and music that’s a black, immutable monolith, always the same as itself). Personally, since I love this kind of stuff, I give it four out of five as a rating. But someone else could easily classify it as junk. The choice is yours.

Buone feste.