HOLD ME DOWN: American Industrial Metal Unit Unveils Annihilating Debut Album "Powerless" - Official Music Video Premiered by ReGen Magazine.

Richmond, VA-based harsh industrial metal deconstructors Hold Me Down reanimate their design for total sonic retaliation through their latest creation, "Powerless", a debut full-length offering of caustic post-industrial punishment and complete sensorial undoing which follows brilliantly in the steps of their transformative 2019 Sentient Ruin-issued self-titled demo tape.

The album has been unveiled officially by iconic Industrial outlet ReGen Magazine, who’ve premiered the music video for the song “STK” stating that the band’s video is a “frenetic visual accompaniment for the song’s mix of dissonant electronics, discordant guitars, and demonic vocalizations” - you can check out the feature and song/video HERE.

As is now commonplace with bands and their releases associated with Sentient Ruin, an aura of ambivalence, reverence and transformation enshrouds this work, with the echoes of legendary industrial acts like Skinny Puppy, Ministry, Godflesh and Swans reverberating from the past and undergoing a future-projecting metamorphosis, as present time contaminants (power electronics, blackened noise, death industrial) enter the picture in an aberrant recombination of stylistic DNA, paving the way to groundbreaking and grim sonic transfigurations. Throughout its ten cold bursts of synthetic mechanized dissolution Hold Me Down explore concepts of withdrawal, personal failure, societal fracture and emotional unravelling through a bleak post-industrial disassociation where disorienting drum machines, vitriolic metal guitars, bleak soundscapes and oppressive electronics instigate a depersonalizing collapse within the listener. As the album's title suggests, the medium of harsh and sensorially annihilating industrial synthesis is the centerpiece to this new work, wielded by the band as a dissociative means, or as a schematic to the dismantling of the listener, who ultimately must be rendered powerless, nothing more than an empty reflection of its surroundings and existence, with the music acting as its cold and implacable ruiner. A bleak projection of reality emerges from this design, boring through consciousness with surgical precision to destroy it from within, leaving nothing but a smoldering wreckage in its wake.

Hailing from Richmond, Virginia, Hold Me Down emerged from the local industrial and art metal scene when vocalist and noise musician Jim Gullickson linked up with local industrial musicians David Hoefer and Ben Rinehardt who around then had just begun laying the foundations for their next endeavor. Gullickson had just put on hold is previous band, black/sludge/industrial duo and early Sentient Ruin alumni AMERICAN, and in order to keep his momentum going was looking for the next outlet to give voice to his creative impulses and passion for underground industrial. The band debuted unleashing a punishing blight of mechanized death and throbbing industrial in the form of their self-titled 2019 debut Sentient Ruin demo tape, a deadly revisitiation of the sounds pioneered by iconic machinists such as Godflesh, early Ministry, Skinny Puppy, and SWANS, but with a modern, deconstructed edge. The quickly sold out demo tape featured seven tracks of total nihilism sequenced and synthesized to pound and drone to the beat of inhumanity, while subtle touches of harsh noise, power electronics, and black metal amalgamated in the mix completed a sonic assault of absolutely mind-defiling cruelty. This release cemented the band’s sound and laid the groundwork for their annihilating debut full-length LP “Powerless”, also released by Sentient Ruin on MC/LP/digital formats in mid 2022.

NITE: Sentient Ruin Issues Tape Version of New Album "Voices of the Kronian Moon" from San Francisco Blackened Heavy Metal Warriors - Cassettes and Full Stream Available Now.

San Francisco's Nite rejoin Sentient Ruin once again to bring us another unforgettable blackened heavy metal epic, in the form of "Voices of the Kronian moon", their brand new second full-length album offered you by Sentient Ruin as an exclusive limited edition cassette tape officially licensed from Season of Mist.

On this new heroic chapter of darkness-forged steel, the San Francisco heavy metal blazers (who feature current and past members of Satan’s Wrath, High Spirits and Dawnbringer) double down on their unique and fascinating formula to pack in another staggering forty-minutes of blazing leads, unforgettable riffs, and absolutely earth shaking songwriting to redefine the ancient undying heavy metal flame and catapult the genre into the future. The band's well established and unique fusion of styles builds further upon the captivating foundation laid on their pervious staggering debut album "Darkness Silence Mirror Flame", and is evolved further and rendered even more epic and evocative, fusing the timeless power of NWOBHM with dark blackened vocals and enthralling atmospheres to tell us an unforgettable tale of dark lore, electrifying fantasy and otherworldly heroism. "Voices of the Kronian moon" displays an unparalleled array of chromatics as it effortlessly swings between the galloping epics of Iron Maiden and 70's Judas Priest, the unrivaled harmonies and hooks of legendary hard rockers like Scoprions and Thin Lizzy, and the malevolent shadow-born esotericism of darker acts like Hellhammer and Amebix.

Nite was formed in San Francisco CA, in 2018 by Van Labrakis (Satan’s Wrath, Mencea), Scott Hoffman (Dawnbringer, High Spirits), Bryan Coons (Older Sun, Motorhome) and Pat Crawford (Serpents of Dawn, Older Sun). Unapologetically classic yet aesthetically and stylistically transformative, the band delivers traditional heavy metal heavily influenced by the NWOBM and the heavy metal titans of the 70s and 80s paired with blackened malevolent vocals, a fusion of elements which has resulted in an epic, majestic, yet spectral and cryptic sound. Their highly original syncretism of different ancestral ingredients of heavy metal brings us back to a golden age of the genre when when razor sharp guitars, blazing leads, earth shattering bass and pounding drums were already a long established pillar of the style, being first faced with the rise of evil growled vocals of bands like Venom and Possessed without ever actually meeting, a communion which Nite accomplished forty years later with masterful effect to unfold their own personal sonic storytelling of horror, darkness and despair. Nite’s debut album "Darkness Silence Mirror Flame" was released on Vinyl, CD and streaming from Creator-Destructor Records in March 2020 to critical acclaim, and re-issued on cassette tape via Sentient Ruin that same summer. The second album "Voices of the Kronian moon" followed in 2022 this time via Season of Mist but with Sentient Ruin again licensing a cassette version.

SHADOWS: Chilean Heavy Metal Cult Issues Debut Demo "Into the Nightmare" Via Sentient Ruin - Full Stream and Tapes Available Now.

We’re honored to introduce Chilean heavy metal masters Shadows, whose official debut demo tape “Into the Nightmare", was reissued for western/northern audiences on March 25 2022 with new artwork after an initial limited run of cassettes with different artwork was self-released by the band in 2021 in their native country of Chile. This masterful debut offering serves as anticipation to their first official debut full-length album which will be released by Sentient Ruin in the coming months.

Influenced by legendary acts like Alice Cooper, Judas Priest, Mercyful Fate and King Diamond, Shadows' debut demo delivers the fire and intensity that every true heavy metal fan will never want to stop hearing; one of searing leads, fire-breathing riffs, unforgettable hooks, and adrenaline-pumping intensity. These three tracks (plus one interlude) contained in the "Into the Nightmare" demo tape introduce us an act at the top of its game and in the throes of unseen and transformative realms of inspiration, as they astonishingly reinvent the metal wheel (and the steel) once again. In a time and place where we all thought we'd heard and seen it all before, this demo serves as a staggering reminder of how and why heavy metal is such an eternal force, how alive and vigorous the heavy metal flame is throughout the world, and of how much it still has to say and give to its devoted fans worldwide. From the opening riff of "The Ripper", to the closing doom-laden crescendo of the title track, everything about the "Into the Nightmare" demo celebrates, re-imagines, glorifies and eternalizes the immortal and undying flame of heavy metal, putting on display such a wide array of tricks, inventive and songwriting excellence to have effortlessly opened the gates to a higher order of its expression and adding a new perspective and dimension to the genre in a mere twelve minutes and fifty seven seconds of unrivaled riff dominance and heavy metal mastery. The occult/esoteric atmospheres, the subtle yet clever use of organs and keys, the spirited sinister vocals, and the gothic, gloomy vibes just serve as a majestic and timeless script to a blazing guitar centerpiece which throughout the demo's short but unforgettable duration appears to dwell on a higher level of flawlessness, brining us one of the most guitar-centric and riff-oriented heavy metal jewels the South American underground has gifted us in ages. Yet this, is nothing but the beginning...

Behind the moniker Shadows is enigmatic mastermind John Shades, actually a pseudonym of Chilean heavy metal musician Cristián Silva (AKA Chris Profaner) of long running Thrash legion Apostasy. Silva formed Shadows in 2021 as vessel to explore his love for older and more moeldic early heavy metal, a style which wouldn’t be fit for the blackened thrashing fury of his main band Apostasy, so he decided to create a whole new band for the purpose. Shadow’s still untitled debut full-length album will also see the light via Sentient Ruin closer to 2023.



PROUSTED: Argentinian Raw Blackened Hardcore Punk Entity Unveils Blistering Debut Demo - Track Premiered at No Echo.

We are proud to welcome into our family Argentinian one-man raw dark hardcore punk entity Prousted, whose obliterating debut Demo will be released via Sentient Ruin on limited edition vinyl 7” and on digital/streaming platforms on April 1 2022. The release is pre-orderable now via all our channels and has been introduced by the always attentive hardcore/punk/metal blog No Echo, who’ve premiered the opening track from the work remaking how this debut offering is “a blown-out, nightmarish affair“ and that the band should appeal to “fans of Gehenna, Blasphemy, and Integrity”. You can read their feature and check out the track HERE.

The light-draining debut release brings us three tracks of blistering and misery-infused sonic darkness and negativity. With its raw, disintegrating sound, this catastrophic debut demo fuses the bitterness of dark hardcore punk bands like Dropdead and Siege with the grimness and destruction of war-torn black metal bands like Revenge and Blasphemy to cast the genre down into a dark abyss of total suffering and terror."

Prousted have risen from the distant yet flourishing punk scene in Buenos Aires, Argentina, with a sound of puzzling dread and of rife negativity. The band derives its enigmatic namesake from the later life period of French writer Marcel Proust, who, in his final years, became increasingly recluse and self-isolated from the world, allegedly going so far as to lining the bedroom which he never left with cork in an effort to achieve a condition of complete sensorial isolation from the outside world. This is the state which the band attempts to convey with its music, discharging a blistering, cold, and alienating sensorial assault that devours all light from the listeners surroundings and obliterates their senses to reduce them to a state of terrified, detached and traumatized isolation. To achieve this grim design Prousted have opted for a destroyed and shattered production quality and enacted an experimental fusion of styles which brings together the anger and bitterness of dark and violent hardcore punk, with the chaos and negativity of black/war metal bands like Revenge or Blasphemy. This unison of rabid and sickening rawness juxtaposed to the band’s unique and sophisticated fusion of genres has materialized an alienating and caustic collision of sounds designed to face the listener with the most crippled and overwhelming states of terror.







GOLGOTHAN REMAINS: Australian Dark Death Metal Cult To Release Immense Sophomore LP "Adorned In Ruin" - Track Premiered at Toilet Ov Hell.

We’re extremely excited to renew our collaboration with Australian dark death metal cult Golgothan Remains, with whom we’ve set an April 1 2022 release date for their absolutely immense new album “Adorned in Ruin”, to see the light on LP, CD, MC, and digital/streaming formats in collaboration with Brilliant Emperor Records (handling the release for Australia).

The release has been anticipated by iconic extreme metal blog Toilet ov Hell who’ve provided a glimpse into the album via en exclusive stream of the album’s opening track “Adoration of Carnal Blaphemy”, stating that the track is a “4 minute sprint through hell, with a main riff that calls to mind the bludgeoning sacrilege of Immolation and Incantation as much as the uncanny howls and ebbs of Suffering Hour and Ulcerate.“

The Australian dark death metal horde return with their cataclysmic sophomore LP, a thirty-minute weapon of absolute oblivion forged by the force of pure darkness and chaos. This new full length offering sees the Sydney extreme metal cult heighten and elevate their own vision of a dark future-shaping death metal to its most devastating form yet, pushing the genre beyond a state of weaponized majesty and assembling an imposing and magnificent sonic beast shrouded in destruction and otherworldly atmospheres. The band's staple onslaught of enveloping dissonance and unyielding intensity indeed reaches the pinnacle of its expression on "Adorned in Ruin", as various currents of black and death metal, old and new, are brought together by the band to create a transformative hellscape where futuristic and visionary atmospherics, sprawling songwriting and primeval violence are masterfully interwoven into omnipotent bedlam. Animating the imploding intensity and cascading chaos harbored at the heart of the album, one can easily parse the mind-bending guitar abstractions reminiscent of modern masters like Ulcerate, Abyssal or Phobocosm, yet the work resonates vigorously with the wrath and feral abandon that made Immolation's or Deicide's early dark death metal such a bastion of chaos and darkness decades ago. It is this encompassing yet future-reaching and visionary approach to the death metal craft, leveraging various of its eras, which has yielded such a majestic and imposing beast of an album. An intimidating dark death metal behemoth that emanates with an aura of apocalyptic immensity as it churns with the violence of godly destruction and feeds from the very depths of oblivion, casting monstrous shadows across a scorched wasteland and evoking visions of grandiose future wars and endless ruin devouring the earth.

Golgothan Remains have been darkening the world with their own strain of shadow-fueled aural mayhem since at least 2016, when their self-tiled debut demo appeared in the Australian underground establishing them as masterminds of a previously unseen new lineage of dark death metal annihilation entirely their own. Spewn from a place of utter chaos and lightnesses, on their inaugural offering Golgothan Remains' wretched craft instantly revealed itself in all its apocalyptic enormity, shrouded in a monstrous aura, and unfolding massive black wings like a beast spawned from another dimension. Upon unleashing the obliterating demo the band spent the next year crafting what would become their debut LP - Perverse Offerings to the Void, recorded at Adversary Studios in Sydney in early 2017 and mastered in 2018 at Audiosiege by Brad Boatright (Altarage, Vastum). Perverse Offerings to the Void was self-released in Australia on CD and tape by the band before being picked up for a local vinyl release by Australian label Impure Sounds (on 100 units only becoming and instant collector's item) and eventually ending up being hailed as one of 2018’s best Australian metal albums and one of the crowning achievements in death metal over all for that year worldwide. With a sound both modern and timeless, on Perverse Offerings to the Void Golgothan Remains have stitched together the ageless brutality of bands like Incantation, Immolation, Necrovore, and Morbid Angel on one side, and the transformative sonic bedlam of visionary bands like Ulcerate, Dead Congregation, and Adversarial on the other, to create a majestic extreme metal colossus of unseen magnitude, completely unrestrained in its famished quest for complete ruin, and magnificent in its imposing display of pure darkness.







BLACK FUCKING CANCER: Abhorrent Californian Black Metal Legion Reveal Long Awaited Sophomore Full-Length Album "Procreate Inverse" - Track Premiered at The Call of Night.

We’re proud to renew our allegiance with abhorrent Californian black metal legion Black Fucking Cancer as we ready the release of their plague-wielding brand new album "Procreate Inverse", to be released March 18 2022 on 2LP, CD, MC and digital/streaming formats along with an exclusive limited edition first ever BFC long sleeve shirt.

As a prelude to the pestilent release, the track “Serpentous Flames” has been unveiled by the No Gleaming Light YouTube channel along with underground black metal blog The Call of Night, who remarked how on this new opus “Black Fucking Cancer raze the earth around them with their high-grade, pure black metal aural hell” - you can check out the full feature HERE.

"Procreate Inverse" is towering and long awaited brand new 2LP full-length offering of cataclysmic and imperial black metal domination. What has always set Black Fucking Cancer aside in the USBM scene is their strict yet transformative adherence to the tradition of black metal across all its eras, an approach which has aligned them far more to the Scandinavian/French school and led the Californian horde to evolve the style's most recognizable and iconic traits beyond a state of weaponized terror, glorifying its most vile dogmas and instigating its most antihuman instincts. The sum of all of black metal's most degenerate and nihilistic traits thus live within "Procreate Inverse" like the gospel of endless and perpetrated violence, nihilism and negativity which the genre harbors at its purest essence, and introduces a work which is by all definitions and standards nothing less than authentic black metal war, waged with punitive hatred and spiteful violence against humanity and anyone who dares to question the reign and tyranny of pure evil. Aside from the exceptionally executed and represented array of influences coming from bands like Funeral Mist, Aosoth, Antaeus, Katharsis, Gorgoroth and Marduk, within the apocalyptic design of this alienating slab of pure black metal warfare the listener is instantly faced with what is the key element to all its triumphs: the awe-inducing virtuosic majesty and executional dominance that have always distinguished this elusive American black metal act. It is this aspect which drives "Procreate Inverse"'s destructive yield into otherworldly realms, with its annihilating and winding guitar assaults that seemingly find no exhaustion nor respite, riding the inhuman backbone of a pulverizing and surgical rhythm section headed straight for the abyss. An all encompassing sonic devourment emerges from this unyielding and inexhaustible convergence of technical brilliance and compositional ferocity, leading "Procreate Inverse" to seem almost multi-dimensional throughout its lengthily and monstrous constructs and its fifty-plus minute blinding onslaught distilled from pure hatred and chaos.

In the band’s own words, “Black Fucking Cancer's sole purpose is to manifest uncompromising, disease ridden, unforgiving aural hell. To relentlessly shove everyone's face into their own shit.” As their name aptly suggests San Jose CA’s Black Fucking Cancer are plague adorators whose wretched aural craft is conceived solely as a vessel for defilement, insult, and ridicule of the human race, particularly of that segment of humanity who follow morality and are cowardly enough to chose to believe the lies of organized religion. A long running and revered act in the Bay Area extreme meta underground, Black Fucking Cancer have always eschewed the trends of their times, and while during their beginnings everyone in their scene and epoch was busy delving into atmospheric and “cascadian” styles of meditative hybridized and frankly inoffensive forms of USBM, Black Fucking Cancer spat on all trends, raised their middle fingers high toward the sky and opted instead to wage a permanent aural war against all and worship directly at the wretched Norwegian altar where the pure and untouched flame of authentic nihilistic black metal burned with the vigor and intensity of a thousand plagues and pestilences. Influences as diverse as Emperor, Immortal, 1349, Gorgoroth, and Satyricon as well as Swedish nuances coming from maniacs like Craft, Dark Funeral, and Marduk can be clearly heard in their grandiose and maleficent aural framework, but one can not help but denote and gasp in awe at the band’s darkest and most malefic side - the side which more than any other one has defined them and made them such a force of pure concentrated darkness and destruction. It is here that the band’s primordial driving force is revealed, fueled by unholy and nefarious influences coming from french black metal abominations like, Aosoth, Antaeus, and S.V.E.S.T., as well as German anomalies like Katharsis, and certain dark and experimental USBM like Leviathan, Judas Iscariot and Weakling, all fused together and sublimating to horrifying heights of aural pandemonium. Black Fucking Cancer’s unholy existence has spawned two releases so far: the Summoning Aural Hell demo cassette tape which was released by revered underground American tape label Graceless Recordings (the same one to discover bands like Lycus, Pissgrave, Mortiferum, Chthe'ilist and more) and then self-released on CD by the band in limited copies, and their debut self-titled 2XLP released by legendary French extreme metal label Osmose Productions (Blasphemy, Revenge, Sadistik Execution, countless other legendary black metal bands from the 90s/00s) in collaboration again with Graceless Recordings. The monstrous 2XLP featured artwork by Italian oil painting visionary Paolo Girardi, a layout by Sutek Hexen’s Kevin Gan Yuen, and has since been hailed as an absolute cornerstone in West Coast USBM. In 2018 Black Fucking Cancer silently retreated back to their home studio to work on Boundless Arcane Invokations, their imposing 12” split with Santa Cruz CA black metal legion Gloam. On the visionary collaborative piece of American black metal set to be released on vinyl in the second half of 2019 by Sentient Ruin, the two bands envisioned the work as a single continuous and circular piece connected at both ends, with the same title for the album and for their two respective tracks as well, where the two bands trade places in taking the composition from start to finish and then dissolve the two ends as well, coercing their two creations into a cyclical and looped spell of vast, glorious, and unholy USBM pandemonium. Brand new 2022 full-length album "Procreate Inverse" is the band’s latest excursion into the most liminal outer realms of total aural annihilation.





HEXEREI: Finnish Raw Black Metal Cult Unleashes Masterful and Psychotic Debut Album "Ancient Evil Spirits" Via Sentient Ruin - Full Stream and Pre-orders Available.

We’re proud to welcome Finnish raw black metal cult Hexerei into our family as we ready the exclusive release on physical formats for the first time ever of their masterful and psychotic 2021 debut album "Ancient Evil Spirits", to be officially released on February 25 2022 on LP, CD, tape and digital/streaming formats, and now all pre-order able and streaming in full via all our channels. Limited edition t-shirt will also be made available.

Berserk Finnish raw black metal disease Hexerei bring us their venom-soaked debut full-length abomination "Ancient Evil Spirits", a deranged aural gateway to unseen depths of madness and total hell that will reshape the listener's idea of terror and toss them into the outermost circles of insanity. Comprising of four primordial stabs of blown out homicidal cacophony, "Ancient Evil Spirits" overboils from the witches cauldron like an acid-drenched conjuration, invoking ancient evil forces, uncontrolled hysteria, and malignant curses to torment the listener with merciless violence and abandon. Reminiscent in its malevolence and primeval cruelty to ancient black metal cults like Darkthrone, Mayhem, Cultes Des Ghoules, and Katharsis, Hexerei push the limits of pestilent black metal even further and redefine the very concept of total aural filth by working the formula into a wider and more derailing canvas, with lengthier compositions, an even more perverse emphasis on primitivism, and a more unpredictable and erratic songwriting that has unearthed truly unsettling and terrifying new manifestations of this ancient and wicked aural craft.

Hexerei was formed in the deranged rural areas of nightside Finland in 2017 by three unnamed and deranged maniacs who set out to create ancient aural gateways to depths of madness and Hell. After two demonstrational self-released stabs of live captured black metal sorcery (the “Aural Abyss” 2018 demo and the ”Oath” demo from 2019) and countless hours of contemplating the forces of the Infernal planes and torments of flesh, a full-grown abomination came forth; a necromantical mockery of life from the witches' black cauldron called ”Ancient Evil Spirits”, embodying four venom dripping evil spells ridden with disease, intoxicated morbid visions through the eyes of possessed prophets of the most hideous of realms. A world of everlasting majestic terror, revelations howled in the shadow of the horns and the force of evil light, forever rejoicing the glorious opening of HELL!

VILE RITUAL: American Occult Death Metal Deformity Joins Sentient Ruin for Debut Album and "Tongues of the Exanimate" Compilation - Track Premiered at Decibel Magazine.

We’re proud to announce our partnership with emerging mysterious American Death Metal disfiguration Vile Ritual, as we prepare the ground for their late 2022 debut album “Caverns of Occultic Hatred”, which will be preceded on January 28 2022 by the "Tongues of the Exanimate" LP compilation, comprising a new thee-track demo on side A and remastered earlier demo tracks on side B.

The "Tongues of the Exanimate" LP compilation serves as a comprehensive introduction to the band’s abhorrent and hallucinating death metal formula and as anticipator to the band’s masterful official debut LP which will see the light later in the year. This compilation has been unveiled by Decibel Magazine who premiered the self-titled opening track stating that the release is “an absolute wrecking ball of dirty, hallucinatory death metal” and that “‘Tongues of the Exanimate’ takes the black/death metal format and adds a psychedelic layer to it, giving the music an ominous tone.“

The gruesome occult hymns of Vile Ritual churn with incantations of eons past to incarnate a most disfigured vision of deviated and perverse blackened death metal ritualism. Born of the black flame of ancient atrocious subterranean rites, "Tongues of the Exanimate" sees the sounds of ghostly utterances travel over cavernous ambiance to create a disembodied, trance-like state, while inhumanly crushing riffs bludgeon the listener and entomb them in a suffocating and grotesque aural burial. Both horrific yet timelessly evocative, Vile Ritual's esoteric blood-drenched blackened death metal melds the feral pestilence of 90's bestial black metal acts like Von and Beherit with hallucinatory atmospheres and the crushing low end of old school death metal butchers like Infester, Rippikoulu, and Imprecation to create a hideous yet hypnotic hallucination of gnarled arcane death metal savagery and abandon. "Tongues of the Exanimate" conjures similar ritual-drenched phantasmal death metal deformities as we've seen in other iconic deviant bands in the genre like Antediluvian, Necros Chrstos, Sect Pig and Chaos Echoes, and is the most recent manifestation in this obscure entity's foul but masterful reveling in total surrealistic ritual death metal barbarity; a 12" vinyl and cassette tape compilation LP envisioned by the band and Sentient Ruin unison that combines three brand new and previously unreleased rituals along with a completely remixed and remastered revision of Vile Ritual's masterful 2019 self-tiled debut demo tape.

Vile Ritual first emerged in 2019 with a defining self-titled and self-released digital EP of surreal and masterful dark atmospheric death metal combining the skull-crushing primitivism of bands like Archgoat and Black Witchery with the hallucinatory and diseased atmospheres of black metal bands like Beherit and Von and the esoteric sophistication of bands like Necros Christos, Sect Pig, and Antediluvian. Re-released on cassette in 2020 by Tempest Tome Tapes, the superlative offering introduced Vile ritual as an entity fully immersed in the darkest death metal craft and dedicated to harnessing the genre’s most timeless evocative power to unearth ancient forms of horrendous esoteric ritualism. In 2021 events came full circle when Vile Ritual and Sentient ruin identified an unholy alliance in each other's respective darkened and sinister ways. The collaborative encounter resulted in the staggering Tongues of the Exanimate" compilation, a meticulously crafted and comprehensive LP containing a re-mixed and remastered version of the aforementioned debut self-titled demo tape along with three brand new and previously unheard tracks. Meanwhile, as"Tongues of the Exanimate" was receiving its final art and master touches before hitting the pressing plant, the next chapter in Vile Ritual’s foul ritualistic death metal quest had already been set in motion, as “Caverns of Occultic Hatred” the first official Vile Ritual debut LP, already loomed on the horizon….