I have to hand it out to Bill Farley; this guy will never give up his doings. Since day one, his band RITUAL was his sole baby and even today he keeps on preserving it. RITUAL and Farley are a great example how to keep your dream going even if don't have all the resource it to keep it alive. Old and new bands have to learn from this experience.

After so many years without support from labels, Heaven And Hell Records issued a RITUAL compilation of almost all of their 80's recordings named "The Ancient Tome". Within the release there the band's debut album "Let The Metal Play", EP "Evil In Your Heart" and other various bonus tracks. The re-mastering task was taken care of by Ben Elliot at Show Place Studios, who did a solid overall job on refining some of the band's finest moments from the good old days.

If you don't have any recollection of RITUAL, it was, and is still is, another Heavy Metal group in a sea bands. However, their good mix Glam Metal / Hard Rock al'a old MOTLEY CRUE and DOKKEN with US Heavy Metal al'a OBSESSION made some impact on my opinion of them. Their music is pretty solid with a share hold of memorable moments. Even if today most of their music may sound to you a bit banal because of the music's progression, it still has its worth. You can't judge this band, and others like from those years, in today's standard.

While I checked out the release I found some good tunes that can serve as memoirs even in today's progressive Metal scene. If MOTLEY CRUE's, DOKKEN's and OBSESSION's classics won't ever die, so RITUAL's classics outputs will long live even if it isn't considered as a large scale band. From its better days RITUAL brought killers such as "Dark Star", "Evil In Your Heart", "Let The Metal Play", "If You Had Your Love" and "Love In The Shadows".Farley's vocals back then were amazing, clear smooth voice with evilness of old Vince Neil and Michael Vescera. His changing band members did their jobs adequately to keep the material going. With the energies of the 80's, The Ancient Tome" is a good memoir of the band's glory days. Although some of their stuff, even for the 80's standards, I suggest that you check it out and keep the 80's spirit going!