Artist: Impurity
Album: Into the Ritual Chamber
Label: Greyhaze Records
Release Date: Original: July 1996, Re-release: 06/11/2020
Country: Brazil
Who doesn’t love some good Brazilian black metal, especially 90s era stuff? There are so many classic bands that fall into this category, such as Sarcofago and Mystifier just to name two. However, there is a band that seems to sometimes be overlooked and that is Impurity.
The band happen to be re-releasing their most acclaimed album Into the Ritual Chamber on deluxe edition vinyl and cassette for the very first time through Greyhaze Records on November 6th, in partnership with Clawhammer PR.
Into the Ritual Chamber was the band’s second album and was originally released in 1996 by Cogumelo Records on CD only. The album was originally only available in Brazil but managed to make its way to other countries by people selling copies purchased in Brazil. The band at the time of release was Ram Priest (vocals), Ziarahs (drums) and Volkh (guitars and bass).
Theme wise, the album focuses on a Latin American mystical journey, focusing on the “Cerro Rico” mountain of Bolivia, where, in the Sixteenth Century, where Spanish colonizers slaughtered and enslaved native peoples to attain the precious metals within the mountain. The album tells the story of these native peoples and discusses them turning to the devil for protection rather than submitting to forced Christian conversion.
I’m not going to break down the album track by track because there are 13 and we would be here all day, so I’ll break it down on a larger scale instead. The band have a very unique sound and style for black metal. Ram Priest has a somewhat standard vocal style for black metal, which is a raw, but mostly gurgled, almost creature like sound to it, similar to that of later career Gaahl.
The thing that really stands out about the band though is their instrumental work. They have an unusual sound for a black metal band, drawing inspiration more from death metal and grind in parts. Having said that the band is very much a black metal band, both in essence and in concept. The overall energy and production of the album is definitely firmly planted in the black metal realm, down to the raw and unpolished nature of the release. The lyrical themes and their delivery are also very much of the black metal persuasion. However, many of the riffs, guitar tones and sons structures fall very clearly outside of the genre. The whole album has a truly evil overtone to it, there’s something menacing to it and you can feel it.
The band acknowledges their influences on the album by featuring a cover of Sarcofago’s Orgy of Flies as the final track. As I mentioned though, this is only one of the band’s influences. By drawing on so many styles they’ve created something unlike anything else out there and that is why 24 years later Greyhaze Records have decided to re-release this classic.
So, if you haven’t heard this gem, I highly suggest that you give it a spin and pick up a copy of the vinyl which you can see below, it’s pretty badass.
Bandcamp:
Spotify:
Order the vinly or cassette:
