Ritual Necromancy

It's kind of funny that Portland, OR (known for its bohemian indie scene, green politics and general goodness) should give birth to Ritual Necromancy. The city whose musical contributions include Elliot Smith, the Dandy Warhols and countless other indie pop darlings can now claim serious death metal on its resume of cultural achievements. Ritual Necromancy make excellent death metal: serious, unwavering, no-adjectival-qualifiers-necessary death metal. Oath of the Abyss is the kind of album that sounds like "noise" to your parents and would have resulted in some sort of intervention had they heard you listening to it as a child. It's full of throaty, suffocating growls and the kind of dizzying, but rhythmic, shredding only good death metal can produce. Just what are they singing about on Oath of the Abyss? I have no idea and I doubt scientific instruments exist that could decode the guttural noises on this album. Which is all well and fine, because this is the mark of a truly great death metal album.