Ceremonial Castings - Salem 1692 - 2008
Here we have a band from Battle Ground Washington state. A somewhat obscure place in Washington I’ve never even heard of. Otherwise, this group’s offering Salem 1692 puts the listener back during the witch trials, in full on black metal mode. A retelling of a sad period of pre-American history, this record somewhat paints this period in full on sad desperation.
First impressions the vocals I cannot understand, its a lot of screaming rasps, whereas the musicianship is pretty ferocious. I would have liked the sound on this record to not be so treble happy. From a production standpoint, it sounds like it was mixed in a abandoned warehouse.
The one element that gains attention here is a female singer. My first thought was an obvious attempt at being a close resemblance to Therion, but with a cadence that swipes at the listener just enough to notice the similarity.
The augmented scraping of impression towards the end of this record is treated with a female only song. Going from an all out attack, err pummeling all senses, to a melancholy missive is a letdown. I was taken aback. I literally had to stop what I was doing to double check this was the same band, and indeed it certainly is.
The atmosphere is pretty cool if you can get passed the horrendous production, if I could understand what the hell the vocalist was saying through his screamy rasps, this would have been an interesting affair. I do know they’ve been active for about ten plus years. If you like raw black metal, produced in a hollow can, and like it really fierce, Ceremonial Castings Salem 1692 is your band to check out.
Thanks for reading.
B.
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