lista zespołów Doom Metal Dea Marica Ritual of the Banished

Riccardo Veronese plays guitars for both Gallow God and Dea Marica. You may yet not know the latter but if you’ve followed our website you ought to know about the former. Gallow God made quite a sensation a year ago when they released False Mystical Prose, offering Traditional Doom Metal with various hints at more extreme forms of the genre.

Gallow God were expected to release their forthcoming record this year but nothing has come out of it yet and, almost coming from out of nowhere, is Dea Marica's Ritual of the Banished. Riccardo says the tracks featured on this album were rejected by Gallow God but he probably felt compelled to have them released one way or another.

Reviews aren't usually done this way but I felt that I was almost doomed to compare both False Mystical Prose and Ritual of the Banished with one another and I hope that Riccardo will be okay with this.

Let’s start off with similarities. And obviously the music in both projects comes first in mind. Likewise Gallow God, Dea Marica plays Doom Metal that leans more towards Traditional Doom Metal on the doom spectrum but they progress and offer structures that are really close to those of Doom Death. If it wasn’t so much palpable on False Mystical Prose it is a lot more so on Ritual of the Banished, which sometimes even share the guitar sound of early Anathema.

Both albums were sung in clean voices except for one song which shares both clean and guttural vocals, an intrepid feet in the world of Traditional puritans, except that Gallow God “untrue” song was discreetly placed at the very end of the record where Dea Marica’s was the very first one. The contrast is interesting as in the first place it created some real surprise which wasn’t and couldn’t be expected. On Dea Marica’s guttural experiment, may I write that it created some frustration? I really thought they would somehow make their “coming-out”, that in the end they would embrace a road not taken before, one that is both Traditional AND Extreme. But they didn’t and only this very song is a fine example of what it could have been.

Once the frustration gets out, I won’t hide the fact that all songs featured on Dea Marica’s album are great if not excellent as in the final eponymous track. In this regard, Riccardo mentioning that “these” tracks didn’t the make the cut for Gallow God is really surprising because if Gallow God plan to release something even better than this, they're bound to be the next best thing after Black Sabbath. Which I find hard to buy and could be a premonitory sign of Gallow God’s swansong.

Onto differences now. If the sound between the two records is really similar, the production on Ritual of the Banished is a bit of a let down. Where Gallow God had this massive sound perfect for their doom quest, Dea Marica suffer from lack of real power. It could be that the MP3 promo songs downloaded just messed up with my ears but it felt poor and weak most times with guitars lacking body and strength.

This impression of weakness (a relative weakness) is aggravated by Roberto Mura’s special vocals. It seems that on a lot of occasions he’s simply not going to make it. It does actually sound as if singing is not his thing at all, it’s not natural, more of a default thing, and the higher tones cause him much trouble (except on the guttural parts) as if he’s always on the edge of losing his voice. And even though, it does sound as if he didn't know how to sing at all, it's him on most occasions who brings out the most emotions in this record and especially on The Wild Hunt where he does become the soul of the song.

In the end, you will now have understand the purpose of this comparison. Even though Gallow God may seem to be a bit above because the album displays better sound and better vocals, in the end, the intrinsic value of the records: songwriting and emotion make them the perfect draw. Conclusion, if you knew and appreciated Gallow God, you should check out Dea Marica. If for some reason, you were living in a cave up to this date, check both bands for I can't decide which one is better. And if you don't agree, let me know in the comments.