First track, Temple’s ‘Ordeals Of The Void’ is an uncompromising assault of relentless black metal staples – blast beats, distorted guitar and pained vocals screeched and howled with near-demonic fiendishness.  ‘Slaves To The Beast’ has a slight thrash rhythm which changes the melodic thread of the record to something that’s almost listenable.  Ritualization’s ‘Ave Dominus’ is distinctly death metal with deep, villainous grunts over disjointed, stop/start bursts of standard this-sounds-slightly better-than-the-one-we-recorded-in-the-shed extreme metal.  ‘The Second Crowning’ actually has a melody to speak of and boasts some neat accents on the cymbals, as well as some impressively nasty vocals.

'...Fading Mankind’ is an album of extremes.  Temple’s four songs sound pretty much identical to each other and to previous work such as 2009’s ‘Lightslaying Rituals’.  Ritualization’s three songs are identifiable but the execution is sloppy.  ‘…Fading Mankind’ could be a little gem for people who love no-holds-barred black metal, and Ritualization have the potential to make their first album (having only released two demos so far) something of notoriety.  This record, however, does not give either band room to grow.

Reviewed by Annette Simmonds
The Vision Of Fading Mankind is out 29th November on Agonia

You’ll like this if… you like the sound of bin lids being banged together whilst a bloke yells a lot