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Culted Go Below the Rituals

Posted in Reviews on May 28th, 2010 by JJ Koczan

As the follow-up EP to their Below the Thunders of the Upper Deep debut Relapse full-length, Culted’s four-track excursion Of Death and Ritual is nothing if not aptly named. In the three originals – the closer is a cover of Swans’ “Whore” – the word “dead” or some variation thereof makes no fewer than 11 appearances. Interestingly, “ritual” only shows up once. I wonder if that’s why they ordered them thusly in the title. Otherwise, Of Ritual and Death would have worked just as well.

Much like they did on the full-length, on Of Death and Ritual Culted dwell in the bleak, dreary realms of blackened doom, like Khanate with a noise fetish. With the instrumental portion of the band located in Winnipeg, Canada, and vocalist Daniel Jansson in Gothenburg, Sweden, you might think there’d be some discrepancy or lack of cohesion in the execution of the material, but really it doesn’t make the slightest bit of difference. I don’t think “Spirituosa,” “Black Cough, Black Coffin” and “Dissent” would be any better off had Jansson been in the room while guitarists/bassists Michael Klassen and Matthew Friesen and percussionist Kevin Stevenson were developing the instrumental basis for the songs and adding sundry noises and percussions. The trio, who also operate as the black metal band Of Human Bondage, seem to have a pretty good handle on what they’re doing, and I doubt the files had to do much back and forth before the songs were finished.

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Culted, Below the Thunders of the Upper Deep: Crossing the Doom Divide

Posted in Reviews on July 21st, 2009 by JJ Koczan

The band also dabble in dressmaking. They wanted the cover art to reflect that.By way of a confession, I?ll admit that before I listened to Culted?s Relapse Records debut, Below the Thunders of the Upper Deep, I first checked out the self-titled three-song EP from Howl in a kind of, ?Who?s that doom band on Relapse again?? brain fart. After hearing the two side by side, there?s pretty much no question. Howl complement their Ginsbergian name with Lamb of God-style riffing and Culted viciously bite off pieces of Khanate atmospherics while popping pills of half-speed Nachtmystium psychedelia. No real question which is the doom band.

But if there was one to start with, it?s only because Culted — a four-piece with three members in Winnipeg, Manitoba, and only vocalist Daniel Jansson in the correspondingly northern climes of Sweden — are so frickin? new. Below the Thunders of the Upper Deep is Culted?s debut, as in, no EPs, nothing. Just one self-released demo and this. Information apart from a narrative of mutual appreciation leading to collaboration on the part of Jansson and multi-instrumentalist Michael Klassen (credited with guitar, bass, percussion and noise) is sparse as to when they actually got together and made the record happen, and for the most part, the six mostly extended tracks are left to speak for themselves.

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