
Blood Ceremony - Self Titled [Rise Above - 2008]Canadian based Blood ceremony make wonderful flare shaking and devil worshiping 70’s occutic rock with odd touches of folk/ rock-ism and prog. This is the bands debut album and it’s a very satisfying dark, atmospheric and enjoyable brew. All of the nine songs here have heavy use of organ and flute which are weaved into the dark ‘n’ evil sub Sabbath riffs and dark 70’s rock grooves. With the tracks been finished off with powerful 70’s lead female vocals- that I guess are best described as part ozzy, part rock witch like and maybe a little bit folk/rock too. The tracks last around the 6 minute mark each and go through some nice changers in pace and deviate from the main riffs for some neat organ and flute freak outs. The pace of the tracks are kept fairly mid-pace with a few crawling moments, but for the most part it’s darkly and horror lined up-beat in it’s vibe. The lyrics and imagery as one would expect are ocultic and horror based, and really who could'nt not dig a band who users a still from 1970’s classic arty vampire movie The Shiver of the Vampires as the cd's picture. An evolving, rocking and atmospheric boiling caldron of 70’s ocultic rock. With the tracks twisting and turning effectively with pace, variation and memorable/ primevil riff matter.      Roger Batty
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