Ritual Temple - Revelation of Evil (2010)

I heard some Ritual Temple on youtube some time ago and their music instantly grabbed something in me, I knew I had to order their demo tape as soon as possible. Unfortunately, the guys only have one demo released and it seems they have split-up shortly after recording it. Which is a horrible shame.

Maybe there's something wrong about me and my sound quality preferences, but I find myself listening to more demos and generally the very early band recordings these days. Maybe it's my bad experience - it seems that some of the band demos I really dig evolve into crappy first lengths. An example is Age of Taurus, which released a smoking tape and then something went wrong with their debut. Of course, this is only my opinion and no one is forced to agree. In this case maybe it's better to release a demo only and disappear.

With Ritual Temple there are no delusions - check how they look and and see their demo cover, the guys are not joking. The doom present on "Revelation of evil" is indeed a revelation of pure and majestic doom metal, which smells like an early 90s garage studio, not like a 2010 modern crap.

I can't think of one specific characteristic trait, which makes a doom band tolerable for my ears, but one thing I know - the line between sounding like an idiot and like true doom, is very thin. The band from French Brittany is a presentor of the latter. "Revelation of Evil" dwells somewhere between Hellhammer and Saint Vitus. The vocal lines follow quite the same path, and thankfully never sound too gothic and gay. You see, I don't ask so much from the vocal work. There are a lot of memorable songs on the demo and while my personal favourite is the upbeat "Slave of Satan", there is not one dumb song. The speed of the tape is settled and goes from mid-paced to wild guitar solos at the end of which song. Maybe that's what I digged most about this tape, the fucking down-tuned guitar lets loose at every fucking song. Both the intro and outro are ritualistic and very well-chosen for this tape.

On overall, this release is a keeper, definitely.  Go get yourself a tape and maybe we can make the guys reform.