Album Review: Armed For Apocalypse – Ritual Violence (Candlelight Records)

Uncompromising sludge juggernaut Armed for Apocalypse’s third album, Ritual Violence, is set for release on 7th October via Candlelight Records.

The band comments on the new album:

Ritual Violence was written in a time where everything seemed to be hopeless. A lot of the songs on the album revolve around an overall theme of being stuck in an inescapable self-destructive rabbit hole, and the struggle to break free of those habits.

Hotly anticipated, Ritual Violence is finally here and good gods, is it a banger. Armed for Apocalypse pulling out all the stops and dropping a tectonic plate of sludgy heaviness on heads. From track one to track eleven, the four-piece show just how much they’ve grown over the past years. Delivering their most focused, most intense and most pleasing work to date.

A furious start with Under my Shame gets the blood boiling in the veins but it’s with the following track, Frail, that Armed for Apocalypse really open up. Pure and unrelenting carnage that transforms into a chunky sludge monstrosity. The riffs are as thick as poisonous smog, the percussion capable of breaking bones and the vocals, the sound of an armada of demonic beings marching on humanity. No-one should be able to make music this heavy.

There’s little room to breathe as the bilious and choking sound of Full of Phlegm rings out and Hourglass makes a racket on par with the inevitable destruction of civilisation. Armed for Apocalypse proving that the trade-off of rhythmic structure and savage heaviness doesn’t have to be a foregone conclusion. Although, there is no arguing that Lifeless is all about making as much noise as quickly as possible.

Bringing a bevy of riffs powerful enough to leave a person feeling dazed, Live Through the Storm is one of the most exciting tracks on the album. The sounds that Armed for Apocalypse are able to tease out of their instruments is so impressive. Whereas Foredoomed is almost naughty in regards to how it encourages the head to start banging. Be careful, it’s a track liable to give you whiplash.

Likely to be a favourite for many, the little touches of melody and filthy-sounding rumble of bass in Thieves of Existence freshen things up. Before Armed for Apocalypse put the boot in and grind down hard with Suffer for a Living.

Enjoy the speed and savagery of Flesh and Blood as the finale of Eternally Broken is slow suffering as only Armed for Apocalypse can do. An enormous undertaking that sees the group take a measured approach to delivering their brand of remorseless heaviness. Delivering peaks and valleys, each as impressive as the other, but disrupting the flow and creating a unique environment in the mind. It’s one of the more challenging and progressive tracks on the album and a really strong showcase of the band’s talents.

Although that is a bit of a given when you consider just how strong the album, as a whole, is.

Armed for Apocalypse – Ritual Violence Full Track Listing:

1. Under My Shame
2. Frail
3. Full of Phlegm
4. Hourglass
5. Lifeless
6. Live Through the Storm
7. Foredoomed
8. Thieves of Existence
9. Suffer For a Living
10. Flesh and Blood
11. Eternally Broken

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