VILE RITES - The Ageless LP (Black Vinyl)

It would seem that 2025 has started off with quite a few progressive death metal releases. First it was Voidceremony’s demo, and now we have Vile Rites’ debut EP, The Ageless. These (seemingly) young Californians are relatively fresh in terms of their presence within the metal scene, but the music presented here indicates otherwise. This is more reminiscent of something veteran musicians would put out rather than newcomers, making this release all the more interesting.

Following a very brief (and redundant) intro, Vile Rites swing at the listener with the title track of this release, which contains everything we’ll be seeing throughout this release. Angular and occasionally discordant riffs, intense drumming, adventurous basslines, with tastefully melodic solos being the cherry on top. Though it is a very dense and technical release, it is by no means lacking in the riffing department, and contains some traditionally crushing death metal riffing, as seen on “By Virtue of Chaos”, which is chock full of headbangable moments. As for the leadwork, it’s quite pleasing to the ear, with Alex Miletich’s guitar acrobatics avoiding turning into soulless wankery, all while retaining their technicality, as seen on the closer, “Spectre of Forgotten Light”. It’s a very tight performance and it’s stuff like this that makes me enjoy solos in metal more and more these days.