Ex-members of 3 Inches Of Blood run riot in RITUAL DICTATES.
Two members of 3 Inches Of Blood got the chance to let their influences fully run riot, and it doesn’t quite sound how you might think... THERE ARE SO
IF ANYTHING IS
going to help us through this year’s madness, it’s monstrously heavy and exciting new music. Best known as former members of Canadian true metal diehards 3 Inches Of Blood, Justin Hagberg and Ash Pearson are both pretty damn busy already without needing to form new band Ritual Dictates. Ash is currently drumming with Boston tech-brutes Revocation, while Justin plays keyboards with stoner doom crew Dead Quiet and fronts sludge metal miserablists Worse. But some musicians have too much energy to burn, and a quick listen to the duo’s new album, Give In To Despair, will confirm that a veritable fuckton of that energy, plus several buckets of incandescent rage, has gone into what is a deceptively versatile and adventurous new beginning. For a start, it sounds nothing like 3 Inches Of Blood.
“We actually reconnected more to our pasts with Ritual Dictates”, Justin tells us. “Both Ash and I played in heavier bands prior to 3 Inches of
Blood, and it was that mutual interest that brought this project together. Of course, years in 3IOB and all the years of progressing as musicians has changed our direction somewhat, and that’s definitely apparent in our music now.”
Kicking off with 90 seconds of thumping metallic hardcore embellished with frenzied one-finger piano (title: It’s About Goddamn Time), Give In To Despair covers an astonishing amount of musical ground. From full-on death metal blasting and gnarly, blackened grooves to moody, Sabbath-esque psychedelia and ornate proggy detours, it’s an album full of adrenalin-packed surprises. It also speaks of a rare and steadily maturing chemistry between its creators.
“It definitely all started with the first 3 Inches of Blood record we wrote together, Here Waits Thy Doom”, recalls Justin. “When Ash joined 3 Inches, in 2008 I believe, it was the latter months of the Fire Up The Blades tour cycle, and it didn’t take long for him and I to have a musical connection. When we recorded Long Live Heavy Metal [the final 3IOB album, 2012] we really dialled in our writing style and our way of collaboration, and it just seems to come naturally now.”
many stylistic shades employed on Give In To Despair that Ritual Dictates could easily have emerged with a less than solid identity with which to draw in new admirers. But despite containing everything from grandiose, classic rock guitar solos to wickedly violent, high velocity blastbeats, it all hangs together bizarrely well and may make you wonder why so many bands stick so rigidly to a single subgenre.
“My wife would attest to me listening to more 80s power ballads these days than death metal!” Justin laughs. “But my tastes have changed over the years, and for the better. The older I get, the more I just appreciate music. I think people would definitely be surprised with some of our influences. It’s very rare for me to be inspired to write a metal song based on another metal song. I find myself more drawn to everything else, whether it’s classical, soul, 60s and 70s rock or 80s pop. I find it very interesting and challenging to create metal from something that isn’t.”
GIVE In To Despair is a wonderfully exuberant record, not least during the rampaging rock’n’roll attack of Poisonous Proclamation (featuring a predictably scorching cameo from fellow countryman Danko Jones). But the album title is another matter: would it be fair to say that Ritual Dictates harbour a none-toocheery worldview?
AT TIMES,
“The song Given To Despair deals with one’s thrust into inner turmoil through forces beyond your control, whereas the title of the record, Give In To Despair, is more about surrendering oneself, or submitting to the futility of one’s existence”, Justin explains. “So they’re both morose, and yeah, I suppose they could be reinterpreted as a statement on the world’s current condition.”
Speaking of which, Ritual Dictates’ plans for the release of physical editions of their debut album have been thrown into disarray, along with just about everything else. Fortunately, Justin and Ash have been around the music biz block more than enough times to be philosophical about the current situation.
“I guess with the exception of the physical copies of the LP and the CDS being delayed due to record stores being closed temporarily, we still had the release scheduled online that everyone can stream in the meantime. We had to cancel a few album release shows, but we can easily reschedule those when the times comes. So many bands and businesses were hit extremely hard by the effects of COVID-19, and I really hope they can all recover from this.”
And while we all wait for things to get back to, erm, normal… well, we can always blast the first Ritual Dictates album and marvel at how these old dogs have picked up an impressive arsenal of new tricks.
It’s about goddamn time.
“When the dust settles we will definitely be playing live shows, and we’re really looking forward to it”, Justin concludes. “We have a live band on board who have done a killer job learning the songs so far, and who share the same enthusiasm as Ash and I do in getting these songs to the streets. We can’t wait!”
“I LISTEN TO MORE 80s BALLADS THAN DEATH METAL!”
JUSTIN HAGBERG
GIVE IN TO DESPAIR IS OUT NOW VIA ARTOFFACT RECORDS