Ceremonial Disembowlment: Impetuous Ritual, Ritual Necromancy and Grave Upheaval in Las Vegas

As I usually mention, most metal tours tend not to stop by Las Vegas, but in the past 30 or so days, there have been a slew of excellent shows. First, psychedelic doom band The Atlas Moth came by, then NYC doom band Batillus, and finally, Impetuous Ritual, along with fellow Australians (and also some Impetuous/Portal members) Grave Upheaval, and Ritual Necromancy,  out of Portland, Oregon.

While the Atlas Moth and Batillus were both great, this show was unparalleled (except perhaps in attendance).

Predatorial started the night with some local death metal, but of course, the real stars of the show were each of the touring bands.

Australian death metal band was Grave Upheaval was up after Predatorial, and the audience was quickly submerged into hellish depths. Imagine walking through a graveyard, then the ground being uprooted from beneath you, with skeletal claws pulling you underneath to some sort of Elder Gods ritual involving a blood sacrifice, namely you, and you get Grave Upheaval.

Ritual Necromancy continued the aural nightmare perfectly, and although the earlier description could be used to describe Ritual Necromancy’s music as well (though I suppose it all comes down to influence from Incantation, more then anything), it was still just as good, just as abysmal, and just as hellish.

While I hadn’t listened to Ritual Necromancy or Grave Upheaval prior to the show, I had repeatedly spinned Impetuous Ritual’s full length and debut Relentless Execution of Ceremonial Excrescence, and was really looking forward to them playing live. If you haven’t listened to Impetuous before, think of Portal downtuned and thrown in a blender with some Incantation, maybe a little Gorguts, and some HP Lovecraft stories, and you get Impetuous Ritual, which might even manage to sound more outright evil then any black metal band.

The touring bands are continuing on to Rites of Darkness, which although has become quite a mess, will still be fucking great due to bands like these.

More photos below the cut:

PREDATORIAL

GRAVE UPHEAVAL

 













 RITUAL NECROMANCY

 











 IMPETUOUS RITUAL