Vile Rites is a fresh band from the North Bay Area of California which offers a powerful traditional approach to their aggressive death metal, intermixed with progressive and psychedelic elements. The band has created a notable first EP, The Ageless, abounding in death metal fury, and looking highly hopeful as it throws forward deep darkness with extreme viciousness and technical expertise.
Following an ominous minute-long opening number, Vile Rites' fierceness on the EP's title track establishes the band's intentions right away, as well as the fact that they are on the right track, making good use of their influences, which appear to range from technical death metal to darker, more gothic prone, and alternative extreme metal sounds.
More fast paced, thrash-laden and with a more direct compositional approach, Laid Across the Altars of Time and By Virtue of Chaos demonstrate the band's punchiness at its peak, while preserving the band's dark qualities.
EP closer, Spectre of Forgotten Light, clocking in at eight minutes, is the release's lengthier piece, and a representation of the band's melodic characteristics, with a strange energy which goes from clean passages to full-on roaring dissonance. "This song is about the collision of Earth with the planet Theia, the event that caused the formation of the moon," the band describe. "The lyrics are a dialog between the celestial bodies clashing."
Bursting with intensity, and exploring intriguing themes, The Ageless makes for a loud and superb listen for the initiated death metal crowds.
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