Ritual Howls - Ruin -Green - VINYL LP

The story of Ritual Howls begins in a southwest Detroit basement in the early winter of 2012. Singer/guitarist Paul Bancell had been writing and performing solo as well as in several bands and was looking for collaborators for a new project. Ben Saginaw (bass) and Chris Samuels (synths, drums, drum machines) were acquatances that became natural fits. With the help of a friend (Jeff Navarre), they recorded their first full-length in Ben's art studio using a laptop. Paul tracked vocals at home in his bedroom and, not wanting to relinquish control, mixed and mastered the album himself.A formidable introduction to the band's haunting, cinematic blend of twangy industrial rock, their self-titled album established the band as a unique force in the landscape of dark music, both past and present. Separated by a decade, four LPs, two EPs later, Ritual Howls is an impressively cohesive first effort and testament to the band's vision that, even in it's infancy, forged a distinct sound that has only matured with perfection over time.

The Detroit trio's fifth album is eight tracks of what we've come to expect from the always in form group - a cinematic blend of twangy industrial rock, metal, noise, baritone vocals, and macabre lyrics -but with an immediate urgency not yet seen from the band on past albums. It's their most focused album to date. a

Ritual Howls create a cinematic blend of twangy industrial-rock that could fuel a post-apocalyptic dancefloor. A collaboration between Paul Bancell (vocals, guitar), Chris Samuels (synth, samples, drum machine), and Ben Saginaw (bass), the Detroit trio's fourth full-length Rendered Armor follows the Their Body EP of 2018 with expansive arrangements sculpted with masterful production. Throughout Rendered Armor familiar influences reveal themselves, but the band doesn't rely on derivative imitation. Instead, Ritual Howls forge haunting atmospheres that are all their own, reaching into unexpected sonic domain. Each track unfolds with unnerving anticipation, as if sound tracking a chase scene in a surrealist western film. Bancell delivers his baritone above a jangling guitar like an incantation, evoking macabre, religious imagery laden with futuristic undertones. Propelled by Saginaw's often fuzzed-out bass and Samuels' dance club-friendly rhythms, it's no surprise that the band hails from the techno capital of the US. Opening the album with a gloomy country-tinged guitar hook, InchAlone TogetherInch sets an ominous tone as Bancell narrates a love story in a doomed world, colored by a glassy synth that sounds as if it were summoned from a horror movie. A sense of longing pervades InchThought TalkInch with it's subdued, hi-hat accented tempo, spacious bass line and reverb soaked guitars that ring out with melancholy. Ritual Howls' most mature offering to date, Rendered Armo' finds the band further carving out their own eclectic mix of organic instrumentation and pulsing electronics, distinguishing them as a unique force in the current landscape of underground music.