Mixing Black Metal sounds with drugs and alcohol to create a concept which should be both incredibly heavy and retain a more tongue in cheek approach; WHISKEY RITUAL's album "Blow with the Devil" is a strange mix.

The Black Metal screams and the more minor buzzsaw riffs seem to give the music a very sincere and almost serious edge, until you read the track names (let's face it the actual lyrics aren't going to help. Screams like this and articulation don't really go hand in hand. Unless you can find a written lyric sheet anywhere, vocalist Dorian Bones could be saying pretty much anything), "Speed & Chicks" and "Too Drunk for Love" suggest a much more good-times party atmosphere than the music. Many of the tracks take a lot from the more Hardcore Punk sound; very fast and simple chord progressions which give the tracks pace and keep them driving forward.

The music should be heavy and brutal, and sounds like when performed live it would be. However on "Blow with the Devil" the level of production has made the songs sound thin and almost like someone recorded the songs using a phone rather than there being any real clarity to the tracks. The overall sound that comes out of the speakers is fairly thin and less heavy, more the ghost of an impression of what the group is trying for. While sometimes these lower production values create a grittier, raw sound- here it sounds more like a demo album for themselves rather than for general release.

If you want harsh, fast paced, throat tearing Black Metal with Hardcore Punk influences which (apparently) uses booze and drugs as the starting point for lyrical ideas, then try these guys. However I can't see this as being a group which creates much more of a buzz without re-working some of the production of the releases.