In the 80s, when METALLICA was about to record “Ride the Lightning”, they went to Sweet Silence Studio (on Denmark), with the own band holding the production along with Mark Whitaker and Flemming Rasmussen (who did the sound engineering and mixing as well). Flemming was chosen due his work on RAINBOW’s “Difficult to Cure” (1981), and the lack of satisfaction with Paul Curcio on “Kill ‘Em All”. This short story is here to explain that a band always needs a helping hand on studio to make things work in their best, and only if one member of a band works on a studio as sound engineer can fill the space of a producer, and explains how a band can make things fuzzy, as in the case of “Chamber of Deathlessness”, the new full-length of the Mexican quartet DARKSIDE RITUAL.

The key point where things are problematic: the sonority. It can be explained by a lot of ‘love-for-underground’ ideas, something that isn’t allowed when dealing with a recording. The sonority is truly hard to understand sometimes, fuzzy and smoky, making things hard to be understood by the fans. Again: it’s not a matter of being ‘real’ or something in this sense (such excuse exists, but’s intolerable), but of making yourself able to be understood by the fans.

The band mixes influences of Technical Death Metal with Black Metal (there are a lot of tremolo picking parts on the guitars) that brings the ideas that the quartet works on a similar way to acts as DISSECTION, SACRAMENTUM, THULCANDRA and others in this sense, with a very good technical appeal (heard on the drums due the very good rhythmic contrasts). But if demands efforts from the listener, because the sonority isn’t what their musical work really deserves.

When the songs are playing, one can feel that “Shards of Eye”, “Cranial Sacrilege”, “To Behold the Miracle of Extinction”, “Treacherous Mass”, “Age of Upheavel” and “Yield for Negativa” are excellent songs, rich on very good instrumental arrangements and sharp vocals. It’s obvious that the band still has potential to be turned into music, but their future is promising.

Again: to DARKSIDE RITUAL, all that’s left to say is that you have to work with a good producer to correct problems in the sonority. But only in sonority, because the music shown on “Chamber of Deathlessness” is extremely good.