Bindrune Recordings: Woodland Denizens unite!

www.judaskissmagazine.co.uk (Simon Collins)
A Banishing Ritual is the third full-length release from the Seattle-based band Blood Of The Black Owl (BOTBO hereafter), following the eponymous debut album of 2007 and 2008’s A Feral Spirit, as well as the split LP with Celestiial, also released in 2008. As with the split LP, BOTBO’s founder and guiding spirit Chet Scott joined forces for this album with James Woodhead (who also plays with Chet in The Elemental Chrysalis), and lyricist Daniel Ellis Harrod. Chet and James Woodhead are jointly responsible for the musical composition of the album, with James’ contribution including analogue electric organ, guitar vocals and drums, and Chet’s including lead vocals, flutes, horns, dulcimer, various hand percussion and thunder gong, in addition to baritone guitar and kit drums.

A Banishing Ritual, subtitled ‘(Into White)’, is intended to be listened to as a single 41-minute piece, but it’s sequenced in the CD as four distinct tracks or ‘movements’, entitled ‘Intent’, ‘The Statement of Will’, ‘Chant of the Captured Spirit’ and ‘The Final Banishing’, and the album sleeve assigns a rune to each movement, namely Ansuz, Jera, Hagalaz and Uruz – the currents connected with these runes provide a key to understanding the intention and energy flow of the album. So, we begin with ‘Intent’ and the rune Ansuz, the rune of Odin, of divine inspiration and utterance. Huge swells of gong reverberate and roll around a hermetically sealed soundscape, producing an atmosphere of containment and trapped, coiled energy awaiting release. Out of the enveloping shroud of metallic roar, a dissonant, hypnotically repetitive dulcimer line slowly asserts itself, with massive tribal drumbeats and rattlesnake shaker percussion bursting out the mix at the eight-minute mark, laying down a ritualistic rhythmic foundation for a keening, poignant native American flute melody that gives way to a vocal section, which in turn segues immediately into the next movement.

‘The Statement of Will’ is given the rune Jera, the rune of cyclicity and harvest, the wheel of the year and the cosmos, and this, at under four minutes by far the shortest section of A Banishing Ritual, is a massively heavy piece of funeral doom, a slow, crushing guitar riff imposing its authority over solid, muscular drum work. There’s a quiet middle section of gliding flute notes, sparse, solemnly intoned vocals and background drone atmospherics, before the guitar and drums surge back, a stately, even decorous, twang arpeggio picking its way over the bedrock of riff. Again, there’s a sudden transition to the next track.

‘Chant of the Captured Spirit’ is assigned the rune Hagalaz, a baleful rune of wrenching, catastrophic change and dark feminine sexual energy, and this movement can really be considered the dark heart of A Banishing Ritual, with a claustrophobic atmosphere created by a sludgy, panting, respiratory beat and melodramatic, almost gothic organ phrases. The drugged, enchained feel of this track, especially with the addition of Chet’s growled vocals, background shrieks, wailing horn blasts and deep, grinding guitar, recalled Children Of God-era Swans for me more than anything else – a comparison that’s never occurred to me before in connection with BOTBO or other Chet Scott projects, although in fact the degrees of separation make it clear that this isn’t such a stretch. Jarboe was in Swans, she later did a collaborative album with Neurosis, and BOTBO’s slow, acoustically-inflected doom metal is often compared to Neurosis. Even the lyrics of ‘Chant of the Captured Spirit’ could come from one of Michael Gira’s blackly cathartic psychodramas of abjection and domination:

I will stab and cut… I consume your hate… I exert my will.

After the ‘nigredo’ or alchemical blackening of the third movement, the album’s conclusion ‘The Final Banishing’ makes good on the album’s ‘Into White’ subtitle, introducing some elements of ascension, transcendence and regeneration, though remaining firmly rooted to the earth, as indicated by the choice of the rune Uruz, the rune of the primal, taurine strength of the aurochs, a kind of prehistoric bison, often invoked in healing. Softly strummed guitar and whispered vocals offer a space for calmness and introspection after the churning turbulence of ‘Chant of the Captured Spirit’, before reverberating multiple layers of vocals, distant chthonic groans and extended disembodied howls imbue the track with an eerie, phantasmal atmosphere. In its final five minutes, ‘The Final Banishing’ develops into a kind of swirling psychedelic dirge, darkly glittering organ notes vertiginously swooping downwards over pounding drums and Chet Scott’s shrieked vocals, the track ending on a soaring, expansive high note with rippling tremolo guitar and high, clean, vocal chants from James Woodhead.

A Banishing Ritual is a deeply heartfelt and personal work – so much so, indeed, that according to the Bindrune press release, it ‘at one time was even considered as too close to the heart to release for public consumption.’ This is music that’s just about as far removed as it’s possible to be from the commercial mainstream or any consideration of ‘giving the fans what they want’, and of course one consequence of this lack of accessibility is that a lot of people aren’t going to appreciate or want to engage with this work. In particular, some of those who enjoyed BOTBO’s previous releases may be disappointed by the relative lack of overt doom metal in A Banishing Ritual – although ‘The Statement of Will’ is heavy enough to satisfy any headbanger, it accounts for less than 10% of the album. A Banishing Ritual demands patient, repeated listens to allow its subtle strength to fully manifest, but the rewards are there for those who persevere with this unique work.

The album was mastered by Mell Dettmer, well-known for her work with other Seattle and Cascadian bands including Earth, Sunn O))), Wolves In The Throne Room and Fauna, and it’s presented in a six-panel black and grey digipack sleeve. A Banishing Ritual brings to a close the first chapter of BOTBO, but it’s important to note that this is, contrary to some reports, not going to be the last BOTBO album – the project is merely in hiatus as Chet turns his attention to his other main project, Ruhr Hunter. And two other pieces recorded during the Banishing Ritual sessions, ‘Minutiae’ and ‘Hibernation’, which at the time of writing can be heard in an unfinished state on the BOTBO MySpace page, are slated for future release on a vinyl split with Jaems Woodhead’s solo project, At The Head Of The Woods.

rockfreaks.net
Another Bindrune Recording, and another mind-altering hypnotic experience. Seattle residents Blood of the Black Owl here on third album "A Banishing Ritual" practice a sound both punishing and cathartic to listen to in a style nestled somewhere amongst the genres of black ambient, funeral doom and drone, and with one song spanning it's 41-minute duration it's no easy ride, having taken me a number of listens to fully comprehend the spiritual and evocative meanings locked up within it.

The press release states this album as an "outpouring of emotions and [a] cleansing of past stains on ones life"; a description that while more pertinent to the feelings of it's creators can still be viewed empathetically in the deeply emotive and transcendental layers across the album. Beginning with a long droning introduction and the sound of faint guitar strumming coming ever more into the mix against a backdrop of radiation-like noise, an invoking sense of terror is hard to avoid as the piece slowly comes into life, implanting all the while images in my mind of vast, dark natural landscapes being overcome by forces too great for it's own good.

This tone eventually changes around the 8-minute mark to include both industrial sounding drumming as well as the first evidence of a discernible rhythm from some folk-sounding percussion that is as difficult to describe as it can be to listen to. As the song moves onwards we are introduced to a flute-like woodwind instrument and echoing, cavernous vocals before after 13 minutes the first signs of 'metal' appear with the drumming taking a more common shape behind a bass-heavy pure doom metal riff, showcasing the variety of influences that have gone into BotBO's sound. Direct comparisons is difficult in the explaining of this but with it's ranges from Sunn O))) drone, Teeth of Lions Rule the Divine and Asunder ponderous funeral doom, Jotunspor nihilistic ambience and the strained folk soundings of Wardruna, "A Banishing Ritual" has the potential to appeal to a wide cross-section of extreme music fans as an alternative and experimental album with huge depth in scope and sound.

The last 25 minutes exude a dissonant spooky sound with the style set similar to the droning soundscape on show earlier taken to the fore. In the midst of losing all sense of time the repeated, distorted vocal lines of "I consume your hate", reminding me of Celtic Frost's "Monotheist" record, suggest a sense of painful release for those behind the Blood of the Black Owl exterior as the minutes crawl by, slowly shifting the patterns of the music blissfully ignorant of the need for any defined song structures or tempos to engage the listener in. This dirge in tempo is obviously not going to be for everyone, and neither is "A Banishing Ritual" listening suited for all occasions, but it's abstract nature and vast levels of inertia have made for me a subtly powerful listen and an album I would recommend for those with a tendency for left-field musical choices and the need for musical accompaniment when one is feeling morose and alone.

masterful-magazine.com (Wouter)
On his third record for Bindrune Recordings sole member and multi-instrumentalist Chet W. Scott continues his meditative, introspective and ritualistic exploration of the heathen spirit through eclectic ethnic instrumentation, tribal percussion and waves of black and funeral doom metal with minimalist narrative or whispered invocative vocals. The music is highly repetitive, almost hypnotic in nature with fleeting melodies. Despite only counting one track this record is over an hour in length and the track goes through four different moods and atmospheres. "A Banishing Ritual" is an eerie experience, similar to Equimanthorn's "Second Sephira Cella". The artwork, design and lay-out is bleak and mostly based around the color black displaying the intricate relation of man, beast and spirits. This fits the record as it is harrowing and introspective and definitely not for casual music fans. For fans of Equimanthorn, (old) Mortiis, Burzum's ambient wanderings and Karl Sanders' (Nile) solo efforts.

http://www.fromthedustreturned.com/
Blood of the Black Owl's previous meditation, A Feral Spirit, was a haze inducing ritual of both beauty and terror, as extreme as it could be tranquil, and really promoted the band to the forefront of our metal scene's peripheral artists, capable of a vision far outside the status quo even in such eclectic genres as black, doom, drone or folk metal. There is simply not much else out there that can capture the repressed spirit of native America in musical form, and place such a tax on the soul of the listener. For A Banishing Ritual, the reins seem to have been tightened a notch, partly due to the fact it consists of a single track in four 'movements', all of which combine for 40 minutes of intense immersion that can drown out your day.

Chet W. Scott (of Ruhr Hunter and many other experimental projects) returns here with collaborators James Woodhead and Daniel Ellis Harrod for a lengthy, disturbing journey. Into the trials of jarring strings, black swelling ambiance and chant-like, ritual vocal we are taken with the first of the tracks motions, 'Intent', which is possibly the most fascinating of the album. "The Statement of Will (Movement II)", which occupies only about 4 minutes of "A Banishing Ritual", opens with an extremely basal, raw doom metal rhythm that is soon bypassed by a montage of eerie woodwinds, ringing strings and carnal vocals, only to return to the guitars for the transition into "Chant of the Captured Spirit (Movement III)", which is the most ominous of the album's stages, 11 minutes of slowly escalating noise, warbled voices and warped synthesizers that tide over into trilling flutes and soothing, daemonic whispers. "The Final Banishing (Movement IV)" grows from this into sparse, further fucked whispers that are cut through with occasional jaunts onto an acoustic guitar, distant shrill synths that emulate the whipping winds of perdition and a climactic finale which feels like being hunted through a cold Northwestern night by regressive cannibal savages.

Like any successful work of its kind, A Banishing Ritual sucks the listener into a vortex of the unfamiliar and then peels away each layer of sanity from his/her stiff mind. I didn't actually appreciate it quite so much as its predecessor A Feral Spirit, but that is partly owed to the single track format...I simply didn't feel compelled by its entirety as I did with many of the songs off the prior release. Regardless, it's highly engrossing and I am very eager to experience this when hiking season begins for me in the summer. A wondrous, though not always pleasant soundtrack to the empty places of the wild (and the soul) untouched, at least temporarily, by Quiznos, Verizon and Lady Gaga. 8.75/10

sonicfrontiers.net (Josh Haun)
So, there I was sitting at my desk, smack dab in the middle of an endless sea of cubicles. Hoping to kill two birds with one stone, I grabbed my promo copy of Blood of the Black Owl’s third and final album A Banishing Ritual and popped it into the CD drive so I could give it a listen while getting some office work done. I continued typing away on my keyboard as the disc began to play, when suddenly things started to get a little strange. My vision began to blur, my dual computer screens turning into amorphous masses of indecipherable fuzz, swirling into a tie-dye of malformed letters and numbers. And that’s when everything went black…

Suddenly, I awoke to find myself in the middle of a vast desert, the sun slowly setting in the west. I was sitting crosslegged in a circle along with my co-workers, who seemed to be entranced by the dancing flames of the enormous fire that roared in the center. Eerie, inexplicable noises seemed to be emanating from the fire, not like the typical crackling of flame. This was the music of the void, and at the center of the fire there seemed to be an endless blackness threatening to creep out and completely overtake it, plunging us into the dark.

The volume of the strange music began to increase, and the void at the center of the flames began to take form. It was the form of a man, who walked out of the fire with the grace and ease of a dancer. The man threw off the long brown cloak that covered him and began to dance wildly, shaking a sort of staff adorned with feathers, pieces of antlers and snake’s rattles. Atop his head was a large animal skull which obscured his eyes, but allowed his long black hair to flow out in all directions. The strange sounds coming from the fire became a rhythm and the shaman began to convulse wildly in time to the metronomic, almost mechanical beat. Suddenly, he dropped to the ground, his mouth open wide. The fire had completely died, but the eerie music continued. Smoke flowed out of the shaman’s gaping mouth, rising up into the air and slowly beginning to take on a shape of its own.

It was the shape of a man, with long hair and sunglasses. The man admonished us to “ride the snake… ride the snake…”. And a great plumed serpent came writhing and slithering across the vast sands, lead by a black owl that soared through the shimmering night sky. We got up from the circle and climbed atop the serpent’s back. Once all were aboard, the enormous snake began to glide across the sand once more, destination unknown.

We travelled in this way for what felt like days, and as the journey carried on, the landscape became increasingly surreal. I saw Jesus Christ on a peyote binge with the Devil, all manner of hallucinogenic drugs spilling out his orifices as he swayed this way and that in time to distorted slabs of doomy guitar riffing that seemed to be coming from out of nowhere. Black blood spilled from his crucifixion wounds, yet he paid them no mind. I saw the corpses of Jim Morrison, Jimi Hendrix and Timothy Leary being violently ripped apart and eaten by the Manson family, more black blood spilling everywhere, with Charlie himself yelling “I will stab and cut!… I consume your hate!”. I saw vast mass graves of human and animal bones, with spirits made of blue flame flitting about in all directions like enormous fireflies.

Then without warning, the sun came up. The black owl deviated from its course and flew into the brightly glowing orb. It disappeared as if fully absorbed, and the sun turned black, far blacker than any solar eclipse. The great plumed serpent looked up at the ebony sun, and colorful bird-like wings began to sprout from its sides. We clung to the back of the scaly beast as it took flight, flapping toward the circular void that now blazed with total darkness instead of light. As we drew closer and closer to what could only be our final destination, we could barely see anything, but could hear the snake’s wings flapping amidst the blackness. Manson’s words echoed in my head like a mantra that I would take with me to the grave. We reached the sun’s surface and the black turned to white, a blinding flash that only lasted for a few short seconds before returning us to the stygian night…

The blackness overtook me for may have only been minutes, but seemed like years. I opened my eyes to find myself back in my cubicle, covered in sweat. The CD had stopped, and my co-workers were standing around me in a circle, wondering why I had been staring blankly at black computer screens for the past forty-odd minutes.

http://thewerkshed.blogspot.com
I really have to give a thumbs-up to the folks at Bindrune. They manage to put out consistently amazing records that are inspired and unique. Much like the newest offering from Celestiial, the new Blood Of The Black Owl is quite a jaw-dropping release. I am no stranger to the previous works of this project (or the ones associated with it) and each outing becomes more interesting to experience.

Here we have 'A Banishing Ritual', an album that essentially is one long composition, but can be divided into four parts. This album is a unique amalgamation of beauty, isolation and sheer terror. A piece of music that is as terrifying as it is tranquil. Ritual voices, bizarre percussion, warped synthesizers, eerie woodwinds, flutes and raging strings clash with seething ambiance, doom-y metal, black atmospheres and folk-ish sections. This album is essentially all over the place musically, but it all works and makes sense together. Each part compliments the ones before and after, keeping the album interesting amongst its 40+ minute playing time. I had to listen to this album two times back to back, just to be able comprehend the beginning stages of what this album has to offer. This is a deeply moving piece of work that unveils more and more each time you listen. I could probably listen to this album 100 more times and still discover new things on each pass.

The album is a lesson in deeply personal, transcendental music. It is like being transported into the psyche of Chet W. Scott and company for a deep look not only into their minds, but into your own as well. Highly emotional, introspective and thought provoking music that simply must be heard to be believed. Outstanding. 8.5/10

www.cwgmagazine.com (Jamie Lardner)
A Banishing Ritual is split into four parts, none of which are a totally deviant from the others. It is, in all essence of what can be imagined, the soundtrack to some unknown ritual as opposed to a musical achievement. The Intent (Movement I) is a thirteen minute incline of an eternal humming massive gong. Instruments of the orient gradually join in the piece one by one until the sound waves seem to protrude the ears and enter the soul. A beat of some murderous intent, though only the beat induced by some monstrous loincloth clad savage shaman, gives it all a circling sacrificial feel midway into the album’s first track. He’s painted in the arts and traveling into his subconscious and this rhythm is all that his physical body can translate. The gong droning on, and heavy Bonham era drums continue to finally emulate some sluggish black metal groove holding the foundation of the mystical flute waverings. The first movement ends with the chants of the ritual’s overseers as the beat drops completely off, and we’re taken to The Statement Of Will (Movement II).

The Second Movement is much shorter at a bloody four minutes. The Statement Of Will kicks off with an early seventies Sabbath style heavy monotone groove, and just as the heat of the bonfire crackles the skin of the some man, the music is abruptly interrupted with the prayer of some demonic dreaded priest. The jam and subsequent burning of flesh rides hard right back in with a vocal free feasting call, only to drop to nothing once again as we enter Chant Of The Captured Spirit (Movement III).

The Third Movement, much like the first, is a slow buildup of some ritualistic event constructed with the beats of a white eyed savage shaman pounding slowly on bison skinned drums, a flat static overlay, and the long nailed hands of Lavey on the organ. With the exception of the crunching of some heavy stringed laced guitar, the screams and growls of a madman, and the clanging of bells on occasion, Chant Of The Captured Spirit is an eleven minute climax of something greater than can be understood by someone not taking part in the ritual. It ends with something unspoken and leads into The Final Banishing (Movement IV).

At thirteen minutes in length, the Fourth and final Movement of this intense ritual begins with off putting guitar strumming in between long empty spaces filled with the whispers of yet another madman. “There Is Nothing Left…But Silence.” Nothing happens for minutes at a time with the exception of the odd strumming and the forcing of thoughts into one’s own head. A sort of absence of space therapy. Beautiful in an anxiety driven madman’s world. Pure blank eyes staring into the world unknown. Lysergic Acid poured into the subtext of thought. On the downward slope of The Final Banishing is the exit into oblivion. Tribal drums and star screams of explosions. The guitar strumming comes back but in rhythm with the screams once more. Screams of pure anguish and pain, and we come to find that the burning flesh of the man held above the flames is not undeserved…but of a brutal rapist and he screams and screams and screams. A guitar solos outside of our realm but pieces can be grasped above his screams of absolute torture. Above the majestic organ scales and static overlays back again. All else fades out but the final chants of the ritual’s witnesses and the cries of the once virgin in teary eyed delight.

The Banishing Ritual is not so much an album of music as it is a story told in absentia of such. As I listened many times over, I couldn’t grasp it as I knew it had to be understood. I bought a handful of thick green marijuana from a friend and took it home. I sat in my pitch black bathroom after smoking the entire purchase and listened once more. It’s there, and only in that frame of consciousness can it be understood. Sober, the work receives one star. With the Food Of The Gods (LSD, Marijuana, Peyote, etc.) it receives a much deserved four stars.

www.metalreview.com (Michael Wuensch)
I was actually hesitant to throw my hat in the ring when I first saw this record in the Metal Review queue . Not necessarily because I wanted someone else to have a fair swing, but mostly in that Blood of the Black Owl recordings require a very specific mindset and level of fortitude necessary to fully absorb and digest what's plated by head holy-fellow, Chet W. Scott. That's not meant to be interpreted as a slight; the fact of the matter is, Blood of the Black Owl's music, when consumed and fully assimilated as I imagine it's intended to be, can cause the lightest of moods to bend sharply towards dark self-reflection that's honestly rather draining. Cathartic, but draining. However, as a grizzled veteran of the game, I crave a good challenge, even if it's likely to steer me on a path that lands me toe-to-toe with cranial bogeymen. So, back into the medicine house we go...

The first thing noticeably different about Banishing Ritual is how comparably shorter it is to the band's first two full-lengths. But its deceiving brevity steps up to the contest as one lengthy 41-minute tune, so I'd still call it a formidable motherfuckin' beast, even if it is shorter than the first two records by a good half hour. The second most evident shift is the fact that this record is probably the least metallic sounding piece of music the band has recorded to date, but still manages to be the darkest and most haunting. Less than 5-minutes worth of Banishing Ritual is actually devoted to conventional metal clobbering with plodding, pow-wow-rhythmic riffs (right after the 13:00 mark. And it's a doozy -- like a 900lb bear giving you cardiopulmonary resuscitation). So, if you're looking for a "straight-up metal album to kick your ass," this ain't really gonna be your thing; but Blood of the Black Owl has never really been too concerned with myopic metal fans.

The most notable transformation in the BotBO camp, however, is the sheer amount of focus given to casting this particular spell with what I can only think to call "dark ambient music." It's almost as if Mr. Scott has sealed himself in a room for the last year with nothing but records from the likes of Elegi, Dead Letters Spell Out Words, Nordvargr or B.J. Nilsen, and it fits his dark vision beautifully. Large spans of 10-minutes-plus are devoted to building "heaviness" with glacially expanding drifts of cavernous sine-waves that crest and crush the listener when melded with the band's signature use of indigenous instruments and sporadic use of ghostly/grumbly vocals. The entire first quarter of Banishing Ritual features a billowing chambered "darkness" that eventually ushers in Native American drum rhythms, crashes and flashes of floating flute. And this "cavernous darkness" returns following the relatively brief riffing measure at the 13:00 mark to be carried alongside a slowly crescendo-ing eccentric organ pulse that's spotted with echoed grumble-growled howls of "I will stab...and cut" and "I consume...your hate" -- a rather unsettling thunderhead that billows and eventually shrouds the brain when experienced in a nice set of headphones.

Whispers and rattling wind chimes eventually steer the spell towards a surprisingly quiet start to the last quarter of the record with gently plucked electric guitar/bass and the album's strongest lean on hissing and spoken vocals. But the calm once again leisurely leads to the storm as the last 5-minutes of the trance pock the brain with demented keyboards, rhythmic pounding and generous scoops of blackened howls and screeches that definitely finishes the record on a deliciously unsettling note.

I've been on board for the entire Blood of the Black Owl journey, but found Banishing Ritual to be the most auspicious material to date from these brooding Shamans of the Northwest. It's too bad, really, because according to the Bindrune Records website, this album marks the closing of a chapter for the band as they put things on hiatus while Mr. Scott focuses his full attention on his other indigenous project, Ruhr Hunter. But, I think it's best to look at this as yet another example of the ever-spinning Ouroboros: He may have finally caught up to his tail, but that doesn't necessarily signify a conclusion. I certainly count myself as one who hopes the cycle eventually continues.

Definitely recommended to the more adventurous metal fan who's not afraid of taking a fascinating tumble into the dark recesses of...

www.metalpsalter.com (Matt)
This is some serious rabbit-hole music. A Banishing Ritual opens with an “In the Beginning…” empty-space drone ebbing and flowing just within the outer limits of perception. Over the next twelve minutes a chorus of voices emerges slowly, crying out of the din. First an orgy of clattering bells lays down pseudo-rhythm, then the tom-tom rain dance calls, shakers and sifting sand respond. All the while the drone grows subtly louder, that demon always nagging in your ear, until the first movement ends with a flute triumphantly holding the fort. That’s the first twelve minutes.

The next movement seems out of place. Blood of the Black Owl invokes the Neurosis-inspiration of the first two albums, and until the ritual resumes we’re left clambering to get back in the boat, adrift on a diversion that will satisfy the scene police that this is metal but will not satisfy the discerning acolyte looking for continuation from the brilliant and captivating overture. Mountainous riffs, indecipherable ranting of the demon-found-a-voice, all crammed into three minutes of distraction in the otherwise seamless flow.

They doesn’t make an easy task for the neurotic classifiers. I guess this is Native-American-folk-ambient-black-doom. It’s a tough task for the reviewer when there are no comparisons and no interpretative entryways. At one time this was considered too close to the band’s heart to release to the public, and it shows. Frustratingly impenetrable most of its forty one minutes, this music doesn’t offer you a helping hand with familiar European composition. Maybe A Banishing Ritual calls for don Juan Matus to be looking over your shoulder. You might need a brujo in this realm of anti-linearity. Feel free to dissociate your spirit and take your ears with you.

The resolution is ambiguous. Is the demon banished? As the ritual comes to a close there appear more conventional structures to reassociate you with the “real” world, but with the wailing rasps in the background there’s no indication that this house is clear. Still haunted? Perhaps. A Banishing Ritual is ouroboric, what it invokes has no beginning or end. This isn’t a journey because it transcends time and space.

Blood of the Black Owl offers not a quick and easy exorcism but an arrow in your quiver with which to arm your soul. Thank Bindrune Recordings for not tying down their evidently boundless creativity by posing them in headdresses and smoking peace pipes. Too many listeners crave obviousness because they don’t want a challenge, but give this a chance despite the learning curve. Try different sets-and-settings. Can’t offer assurances here that anyone will like it, as not having walked in the artists’ moccasins for a lifetime tends frustrate knowing A Banishing Ritual, but it’s a worthy purchase celebrating the perseverance of will.

www.metalteamuk.net (Pete Woods)
It took a few albums but I really wanted to have a proper listen to this band as soon as I clapped eyes on their name. Blood Of The Black owl sounds like a fantastic title from a 70s’ movie, either a Giallo in the tradition of having an animal named in the title or something revolving around an ancient Red Indian curse. In fact as I listened to this for the first time it did strike me as musically having a fair bit in common with the second of these ideas. After all it is called ‘A Banishing Ritual’ and secondly there are many sounds within that do remind of the rituals of the Native Americans as they are politically correctly referred to today.

America is fast becoming a hotbed for bands that play a style pitched somewhere between black metal and doom. I am quite tempted to describe it as blackened post doom and many of the practitioners have a strong ecological slant. Snapping on the heels of Wolves In The Throne Room and Agalloch the two most well known there are a host of others such as the mysterious Fauna, In Gowan Ring and L'acephale, specifically bands coming from the Cascadian region (Pacific Northwest region of North America). They are all well worth exploring and if you have not already dipped into things Blood Of The Black Owl could be a good starting point.

This is basically one 41 minute track and the band’s third album and it really is a journey from beginning to end, perhaps akin to the musical equivalent of a peyote trip. Apparently it is so personal to the musicians that they at one time considered it too close to the heart to release for public consumption. On pressing play there is a sinister throbbing which gradually builds up around the listener. With what sounds like a tambourine quietly in the background this has a mesmerising feel to it which can be taken in a ritualistic and even shamanic sense. This snakes out like a nest of rattlers shaking their tales and infuses a mystic state which is heady as a flute comes in and breathes extra life to the rite. When guitar and drum come in you are snapped back in part to the modern world realising that you are listening to something contemporary. The two worlds mix together in an organic stew, a 70’s sounding keyboard quietly weaves in the background and voices can be heard perhaps casting spells around them too. Vocals do eventually howl in and there is a definite black metal emphasis on things, in fact I am reminded of Xasthur more than anything here but the music which is by now glistening around them is a completely different affair.

This album was not dissimilar than I had preconceived ideas of it sounding and it certainly did not disappoint. If anything it has made me want to go and listen to what came before it and other bands I have not heard from Cascadian America.

Absolute Zero: http://azm-magazine.blogspot.com/ (Clint Listing)
So lets start with a slight back story on this project Chet who also has Ruhr Hunter and runs a wonderful label called Glass Throat with is wife Rachel was very interested in Doom metal and Ritualistic metallic sounds as well so Blood for the black owl was born. Chet is on his 3rd release for this project and I have to say this is the most experimental of all the journeys and most similar to Ruhr hunter. With Blood for the black owl we seem to have Ambient Drone, Native American Rituals and Doom metal all into a very beautiful packed Heathen belief going on. If you by chance mix Earth, Skepticism and Wolves in the throne room you gave a very clear vision on where Mr Scott wants this project to be taking into. There is a raw element to all of this as well but that where the layers just make it all the more interesting. A Banishing Ritual has a very left field Neurosis style going on from time to time . From the buzz going on with this project it seem this maybe very well the last Blood for the black owl release and that would be a huge shame as I think with this title the project has finally found its own very original sound. I would love to see this project live if they ever can come to the Southwest esp Arizona I would try at all cost to see them.