Oppressive. If I had to pick one word to describe Deadbird after the first couple of listens, oppressive would be the word. Deadbird crafts a dense sonic landscape much like their cousins Rwake. The main difference here is that Deadbird chooses to explore the melodic side of the darkest reaches of heavy guitar music. Just don’t make the mistake of expecting any radio-ready hooks here.

Twilight Ritual opens with a quick drone of feedback before lurching into the opening number, “Into the Clearing.” The band crashes in along with an anguished howl of vocals before plodding along to the aforementioned melodic interlude. The quiet parts here are the quiet parts of the dark side of a tormented soul. Deadbird doesn’t linger too long in the quiet territory but crashes back into a doom groove to satisfy the most die-hard doom fans. “Death of the Self” opens with a rather upbeat pounding riff that really pulls the disc along. It’s almost thrashy in origin, yet still retains that dense, crushing sound. The vocals on this track tend towards cleaner and somehow more tormented sounding. Screams come out of the back of the mix to blend in with clean vocals and switch between the two to provide an interesting dichotomy between the two. “Feral Flame” roars out of the gate, stomping the middle of this release into oblivion before crashing way down into the sludgiest, darkest corner. The title track, “Twilight Ritual,” also serves as our closing track. The ride through the darkest depths comes to an appropriate close while rolling through many dynamic changes to come to an end through a simple fade.

The songs on Twilight Ritual are long, the shortest track clocks in at just under six minutes. Deadbird are very likely to take every song and completely destroy every aspect off it until nothing is left to chance. This is a killer heavy album. It is easily something that just about anyone into heavy music can enjoy. I can only wish that more albums would come along that were this good from start to finish. This is how you make an album.

- Dave Warren