Exclusive Track Premiere: Ritual Fog’s “Nocturnal Suffering”

October 9, 2024

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Obdurate pride and steadfast hate…

On November 29th, Memphis’ Ritual Fog will release their debut album But Merely Flesh with the inimitable Transcending Obscurity Records. With only a 2022 demo also released as a short split with fellow Tennesseans Pissrot under their belt, Ritual Fog somehow already feels like an old hand at the game. Members of the band have spent their time variously together and separately in acts such as Maggot Stompers Excavate, thrash attackers Dawn Patrol, the unspeakably axed Shards of Humanity, and the criminally under-discussed sludge/hardcore beasts Autolith. To keep things fresher than wet green ooze irradiating your rotting cemetery, Ritual Fog brings together OSDM, thrash, and just a hint of whatever it is Autolith is doing, delivering a balanced, vicious, pitboss-approved record.

Today, we’re stoked to premiere the album’s third single “Nocturnal Suffering.” Thus far, we’ve heard two absolute rippers in “Desolate Chasm” and “Demented Procession.” “Desolate Chasm” sets the table, with clinks so fat you have to call them clunks and the kind of riffing that will call to mind Morgoth‘s 1991 Cursed. “Chaos reigns,” barks guitarist/vocalist Ian Youngkin, invoking Antichrist‘s impossible-to-forget fox scene. Second single “Demented Procession” is similarly deranged, keeping us firmly planted in the roots of Morgoth and Death while also calling to mind contemporaries Skeletal Remains. Youngkin’s multifaceted vocals again raise the stakes for “Demented Procession,” giving the song a kind of crackbrained hysteria. You’re so busy following him through his varied approach that you hardly notice the fat-fisted punch of Andrew Hobday’s snares or the old school putridity of the alternating thrash, mosh, and doom riffs contained therein.

With “Nocturnal Suffering,” take that combination, shake up its admixture, and see what pours forth. We’re still riding cracking snares and frantically clinking cymbals; we’re still stomping holes in the pavement to allow the “scathing and vile” OSDM fumes to bellow up from below; and we’re still being tossed around with reckless abandon by the “acerbic and gritty” thrash influences. Everything is so tightly written—every twisted and twisting moment so expertly delivered—that the track simply crackles with a relentless, ravenous vehemence. You barely notice the 4-minute runtime before it’s time to hit play all over again.

About their latest single, the description leaves little guesswork for the listener:

Nocturnal Suffering is about overthrowing heaven through the powers of hell. Using God’s own creation against him. Death Metal for Death Metal.

You’ll forgive me if “Death Metal for Death Metal” calls to mind Rival Mob‘s Hardcore For Hardcore rallying cry. You’ll also forgive me if I am wont to quote from Paradise Lost as we head to Pandaemonium:

Th’ infernal Serpent; he it was, whose guile

Stird up with Envy and Revenge, deceiv’d

The Mother of Mankind, what time his Pride

Had cast him out from Heav’n, with all his Host

Of Rebel Angels, by whose aid aspiring

To set himself in Glory above his Peers,

He trusted to have equal’d the most High,

If he oppos’d; and with ambitious aim

Against the Throne and Monarchy of God

Rais’d impious War in Heav’n and Battel proud

With vain attempt.

Of course, as Ritual Fog tells it, this war was not impious nor was the proud battle fought in vain. This is the triumph of rebel angels and of their leader, breaking free from “Adamantine chains and penal Fire” to usurp and vanquish the Omnipotent. So throw those “baleful eyes” upon the video below and hit play!