You know when you burp and sometimes you ‘vurp? You know, that hot sour taste as what seems like beef stew rises up the back of your throat, into you mouth, and then you are forced to swallow back down its acidic, regurgitated goodness. You know the look on your face when you swallow it? That’s the look you will have on your face throughout the duration of Relentless Execution of Ceremonial Excrescence.

And what else would you expect from an Aussie death metal act featuring two members of Portal? Though possessing the same murky, muddy cavernous tones as Portal, I feel Impetuous Ritual is more of a ‘Portal- lite’,  something if Swarth was too much. It’s slightly more structured and restrained, slightly less chaotic, and has more of a doomy vibe.

Still, Relentless Execution of Ceremonial Excrescence is a pretty disturbing, oozing, effort that’s at times, is just as brain rapingly discordant and paranoia inducing as Portal. Armed with a similarly disgusting guitar tone and cavernous bellows and screams, the oppressive back bone is certainly rooted in the likes of Teitanblood, Mitochondrion and Incantation, especially when the band embarks on one of its slower lurches but drenched in a filthy viscous film. And indeed this is what gives Impetuous Ritual a slightly different feel than Portal. While certainly the likes of “Convoluting Unto Despondent Anachronism”, “Coalescence of Entropy”, “Ceremonial Disembowelment” and “Inexorable Blasphemies” rumble and seethe with an insidious discordance, slow, crawling lurches like opener “Elegy”, sickly 8 minute closer “Dirge”, “Destitution” and “Ritual of the Crypt” are just retching, nausea inducing, tracks of pure bowel eroding muck; A sonic cacophony that seems to have been slowly vomited forth from the depths of Lucifer’s colon. And of course, Portal fans will see Impetuous Ritual are a slightly less esoteric when it comes to their song titles and lyrics.

There is something truly foul afoot in Australia and I don’t mean Paul Hogan’s leathery skin. It appears the country is experiencing an extreme musical growth that Europe and the US had in the early 90s. And while Australia has always had its share of revered quality acts lurking in the belly of extreme music (The Day Everything Became Nothing, Destroyer 666, Nazxul, Psycroptic to some geographical extent), acts like Portal, Defamer, Impetuous Ritual, Be’lakor, The Amenta, The Red Shore, Mournful Congregation, Ilium, Razor of Occam, Brazen Bull, Virgin Black and others are ensuring that Australia is belting out brilliance on every level in every genre of metal with the likes of Portal and Impetuous Ritual leading the way for truly loathsome, extremity that’s pushing musical boundaries further and further.

[Visit the band's website]

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