Ordeal by Roses - Red Death

Ordeal by Roses – Red Death – Black Ring Rituals – Cassette/Download – 2021

https://blackringrituals.com/album/red-death

https://ordxxlbxrxsxs.bandcamp.com/

      1.    Blood Was Its Avatar, And Its Seal.

      2.    Grave Cerements and Corpse-Like Mask.

      3.    And The Flames of the Tripods Expired.

      4.    And Darkness, And Decay, And the Red Death Held Illimitable Dominion Over All.

      5.    God’s Whip with Which to Punish the Nations

Red Death is the fourth release by Welsh Power Electronics project Ordeal by Roses. As you all know, I have followed this project closely and have been impressed by all three previous releases. I type this without having heard the release yet, even the titles have weight and depth to them – I hope the work has the same impact.

When I play the first track, the suspense is killing me, the importance the project has to me is why I can’t hide that fact in this review. The sounds go off until depraved vocals echo through the noise, this is illegible screaming that forms a black hole of sound. The increased agitation of the metal abuse manipulates the track’s ambience and build up intensity. Slow piercing feedback whistles at the start of Grave Cerements, this plays with the space of the sound whilst antagonising the listener as it shifts and winds through itself. The vocal that fights with this noise emerges, guttural and full of echo - it is a different approach to previous vocals demonstrated by the project, if anything this is a purer type of Power Electronics vocal, inhuman and horrid. So far, I feel a step up, the antagonistic hellishness demonstrates a new approach: as the tones wail, emotion can be felt. I that feel at times, the sounds are doing the talking, not the voice.

Bingo, track three onward shifts into the higher gears as all (And the Flames of Tripods Expired) explodes and the sound is humming and distortion colliding in a wall like manner to make a guttural blast – it talks lots. Resonating, expansive synths throw melancholy everywhere as a vocal rant goes off on And Darkness, And Decay.. those synths dominate bigtime. The rant continues behind a massive blast of Industrial noise for the final track God’s Whip… , here the vocal is enraged and desperate. The sound is huge and the vocal clear in its diatribe until noise takes over and really cuts into the track to allow for the shouting to return, it clears space. This is where the project really goes off, the rage explodes, the sound dies and we are left with the lone whistle of feedback.

The range of sounds the project uses has shifted in many new directions, whilst the intensity never lets up. Just hearing this new album has made me happy and secure in the knowledge that to me, Ordeal by Roses is now a key voice in contemporary Power Electronics.

Coventry Soul 2021.