Ritual Front – Two Lightnings

Out of Russia comes this 3-track cdr from a project yet unknown to me. Ritual Front is a two-piece band consisting of Michael A. and Roric, using keyboards, sampling and voices, and a guest guitar player on the second song. The first track begins with a classical marching song, soon followed by fanfare drums and hunting horns. The marching boots are accompanied by militant shouting. This song sounds a little too ‘kitsch’ for me.

Song no. 2 starts with a medieval melody and loud drums, before a guitar leads the melody. After a while a little hesitating male voice begins to sing in Russian. Actually a quite nice song to listen to, not completely original, but certainly pleasant. The song has a few nice turns though, varying between guitar passages and keyboard/drum parts. Synthetic folk, a bit in the vein of Actus or Belborn. The last track is more of a dark soundscape, with sounds of clinging metal, classical samples, noisy elements and a dark ambient foundation. It has a surprising church organ finale, with grave male spoken words. Not bad!

Ritual Front could use a bit more power and conviction and a more dynamic sound. But nevertheless a promising demo.

artist: Ritual Front
label: self-released
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