heavy-metal-darkness: Ritualhammer | Grand Pestilential Flame

Friday, October 17, 2025

Ritualhammer | Grand Pestilential Flame | Werewolf Records

Release Date: September 26, 2025

Format: CD, Vinyl

Genre: Death Metal

Country: Finland

Born in 2023, Finland’s Ritualhammer comes storming out of the underground as a savage new unit built from the ashes and fires of several notorious acts such as Riivaus, Sacrificium Carmen, Mörbid Vomit, Licht Des Urteils, Coraxul, and Wömit Angel. With members deeply rooted in black and death metal’s foulest traditions, they’ve coined their sound “apocalyptic evil metal,” and that description isn’t an exaggeration.

“Grand Pestilential Flame” clocks in at just under half an hour, but it’s an onslaught that feels far larger than its length suggests. The album is raw, violent, and steeped in the kind of chaos that made early death metal so dangerous. Every song is propelled by manic drumming, violent riffing, and guttural roars that seem to echo from some abyss long forgotten. The guitar tone bites and burns, the bass rumbles like an earthquake, and the vocals sound as if they were recorded in a collapsing crypt.

Ritualhammer keeps their attack relentless, rarely pausing for breath. The tracks bleed into each other like consecutive battles in the same war, each one swinging harder than the last. “Drenched In Stygian Abyss” and “Berzerkercircle” in particular have a violent charm that’s primitive and effective, recalling the manic energy of bands like Order From Chaos and Vomitor.

The production is raw, everything hits with brutal precision, the sound is thick and organic, the opposite of modern over-produced death metal. There’s dirt, there’s heat, and there’s danger. The final track, “The Channeling Darkness,” stretches longer and gives the band space to summon something close to ritualistic terror, a fitting closer that burns slow and heavy before collapsing into pure black smoke.

“Grand Pestilential Flame” is a short, vicious strike that reminds listeners what death metal is supposed to sound like when it’s stripped of all pretense. It’s violent, ugly, and alive in its chaos. A strong debut that erupts with unholy energy and captures the raw essence of underground death metal. Ritualhammer sounds possessed, and “Grand Pestilential Flame” proves that the Finnish scene’s fire is still raging, blacker and hotter than ever.

Score: 7.5