GENOCIDAL RITES - "GENOCIDAL UPHEAVAL OF SUBSERVIANT..." LP

Since 2021, Ohio's GENOCIDAL RITES have been waging war on the American Midwest via a demo and a trio of EPs and especially their mesmerizing live shows. Just last year, HELLS HEADBANGERS made a blood pact with the band on their home soil, with the first fruit being the EP Exsanguination of the Gods. As concise of an introduction to GENOCIDAL RITES as any, the feral frequencies across that three-song/nine-minute assault were indeed black, white, and red all over: the Ross Bay gods of war loomed large here, as did paradigmatic Black Witchery and especially Proclamation.

No progression and no compromise, GENOCIDAL RITES now make their Genocidal Upheaval of Subservient Abrahamic Law. Still throbbing with ignorant barbarity, here do the quintet somewhat flip the script on the bestial metal idiom. Said foundation firmly in place, GENOCIDAL RITES amplify their underlying D-beat influence - think Avskum, GBH, and especially Anti-Cimex - and more so the '80s grindcore of Repulsion, Germany's Blood, Finland's Goat Vulva, and the demos of Sweden's Carnage. As such, Genocidal Upheaval of Subservient Abrahamic Lawis just as blown-out and blackgrinding as expected, but the songwriting and execution slightly deviate from those dogmatically rocking wraparound shades. Pushing this deviance further are the perverted solos swirling about RITES' wreckage, creating a unique headspace for otherwise-hammering intensity. Lyrically, Genocidal Upheaval of Subservient Abrahamic Law is good on its title, balancing void and chaos magic, total annihilation, death to the Abrahamic religions, psychological mania resulting in true evil, and long-forgotten deities; ritual-ritual-rituals and fumbling through pig's blood this is not. GENOCIDAL RITES have arrived, machetes leveled at you!