Blood Ceremony – Living With The Ancients

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Their ocult subject matter and penchant for the ’70s has found Blood Ceremony, and slightly more recently Ghost, unfairly grouped with the more retro doom bands on the circuit like Electric Wizard. Being on Rise Above Records probably contributes to that misconception as well. But in truth there’s not very much doom in their sound. The main riffs from My Demon Brother and Oliver Haddo borrow heavily from early Black Sabbath, and its only in these moments that any real doom credentials are evident. Otherwise a more fitting description for Blood Ceremony is hard rock mixed with acid folk. In other words, ’70s music. The problem here is they did that an awful lot better on the debut album. Here a thicker, fuzzier guitar tone and simpler, chunkier riffs eliminate most of the neat subtlties in the playing which could be heard on the first disc, while the songs themselves aren’t close to being as interesting and the use of the flute, a wonderful change of pace and accent on the first album, constantly feels like it’s being done for no better reason than expectation here. Parts of closing ten-minute epic Daughter of The Sun re-capture the hazy sincerity and rawer edge of the debut, but otherwise what’s on offer here is merely a bland shadow of what they can achieve. Even vocalist Alia O’Brien isn’t delivering with any conviction this time. Living With The Ancients feels as much like an attempted re-hash as Blood Ceremony did a refreshing new sound (rooted in the past, obviously), and for just album number two, and following something so authentic, that’s incredibly disappointing.

Written by Andy Lye
More: 2011, Albums, Hard Rock, Quick.Play Reviews, Blood Ceremony