RITUAL MASS - Cascading Misery (Review)

Written by: Blackie Skulless

Five years ago, Caligari Records put out the debut EP by Pittsburgh’s death metal outfit Ritual Mass a little after their debut demo. To this day, the EP entitled Abhorred In The Eyes Of God is one of the most horrendous, disturbing, hateful, and completely void-of-life releases I’ve ever heard. It worked for its short dose of getting that unlovable feeling more than anything else, and I predicted a full-length might need a little more to it than just sheer over the top brutality and unrelenting weight meant to crush every bone in the listener into ashes. Unfortunately, I’ve been proven correct with the first album titled Cascading Misery, this time presented by 20 Buck Spin.

Don’t get me wrong, as I’m pretty certain that Ritual Mass have done everything they set out to do, with not only a fitting album title but also a bleak and harrowing album sleeve. For all six of their tracks, they’ve tightened up their hateful sound into a more streamlined package, adding in clearer guitar shifts that are worth acknowledging from time to time as well. Much of this is chewing everything up and regurgitating explosive cavernous vocals a la Spectral Voice, guitar chugs that move from reverberating atmosphere to almost blackened tremolos, and pummeling walls of drum-gradients not too dissimilar to later Deicide. As great as all of this sounds, it’s void of anything that isn’t just “we want to make you uncomfortable.”

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In other words, there’s no “space between the space,” to create suspense, not much of anything that I would qualify as a hook, and little identity outside of having the most one-dimensional vocals you’ve ever heard. Cascading Misery isn’t objectively bad at anything it does; there’s a slowdown here in “Looming Shapeless Entity,” your shot at a solo there in the end of “Immeasurable Hell,” and even a quieter nod to some Candlemass licks at the end of the fourteen minute “Disquiet.” But none of this really does much outside of showcasing the ability to make something that resembles variance, tucking in some slam-riffs, but avoiding any elaboration to keep me wanting to experience it again. I’d be better off just getting these decent attributes from something else that’s a little more well-crafted. It truly seems like the name of the game is to punch deep, down into the hellish void that is the worst imaginations of existence in musical form.
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And for that, I will give them props, but it won’t really make for a release I care to come back to. It’s certainly horrific, it’s painful and unforgiving, the album art is as sick as the music sounds, and if nothing else there’s certainly something to work with here. I just can’t really see much of a point outside of that, and it’s this reason that Ritual Mass was able to hook me with a short EP but not really a full-length. Lovers of the most gut-wrenching and extreme should at least check it out, as some will probably dig it just for the feeling; I just prefer to get that feeling from other bands.

Ritual Mass - Cascading Misery was released Sept. 5th, 2025 via 20 Buck Spin. Find it here!

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Ritual Mass can be found at Bandcamp and Facebook
Cover art by P. Trona