(written by Islander)
The marauding black/thrashers Ancestor of Kaos have followed a long and winding road, a twisting and turning path that now leads to the April 18 release of their new album Animal Ritual by Horror Pain Gore Death Productions.
They began as a black metal band formed in Havana, Cuba in 2005 under the name Ancestor. Under that name they released a first demo, a split, and two albums. In 2013 the band moved to the U.S following an invitation to play at South by Southwest that same year. Initially they were based in Miami and were active on stage, opening for such bands as Deicide, Acheron, and Goatwhore, among others.
We’re told that from 2015 until 2020 the band went into a brief hiatus where they changed their name to Ancestor of Kaos. In 2022, after resuming activity, they released their Ancestor of Kaos album, which consisted of new versions of old songs, re-recorded in Las Vegas, Nevada. And then, in 2024 (with a renewed lineup) they began releasing singles that would lead to the discharge of this new album.
Our own first exposure to the album came not long ago through an official video for the album’s opening track, “Death By Hanging“. In that song’s overture, the corpse-painted bandmembers issue brazen and blaring chords, deep booms, and a whipcrack snare. When they cut loose, the riffing furiously scythes and dismally writhes, and the vocalist comes for our throats with fangs bared.
They relentlessly change the percussive patterns, the tempos, and the riffing. The music viciously jolts, rings like a fanfare for some hideous infernal lord, manifests the grim agonies of its victims, and whirls in violent ecstasies. Near the end we get a screaming fret-melter of a solo that pitches the song’s exhilarating intensity to a higher plane.
HPGD has also previously released the album’s closing song, “Under the Red Menace“. With the sharp-toned snare again driving the band’s hell machine forward, they discharge madhouse savagery through riffing that violently roils and feverishly hammers, coupled with rumbling low frequencies and scorch-the-earth screams.
But here again, Ancestor of Kaos switch things, up, bringing in a melody that’s fleet-fingered but flows, and it channels desperate and even sorrowful moods. The band also unleash a cruel but highly-headbangable rhythmic riff and yet another spectacular guitar solo that becomes the starting gun for another headlong thrash-fueled charge (yet with that desperate melody still in the mix, along with even more terrorizing screams).
And now we come to the song we’re premiering today, “Eternal Night“. Compared to the first two songs you’ve heard, this one doesn’t race but seems to lurch and lunge like some cold-hearted, black-coated beast — heavy, dark, and lower in tone. When the band do stomp on the gas (accented with electrifying drum-fills), the music viciously churns in a way that’s still damned heavy (the bass throbs are enormous), but it also hellishly whines and whirls, and it spasms and careens in a fiery paroxysm of multi-layered madness (by contrast, the drummer at that point is the only participant that doesn’t sound insane).
It probably goes without saying at this point, but as demonstrated by these songs (and even more so by the rest of the album) Ancestor of Kaos are not only technically very skilled, but they also know how to write dynamic and memorable songs, authentically hellish but with more facets than many other black/thrashing maniacs serve up.
ANCESTOR OF KAOS is:
Jorge Hellfire (vocals)
Joel Zalazar (guitars)
Luis Bosque (bass)
Alcides Rodriguez (drums)
HPGD will release Animal Ritual on CD and digital formats, with apparel. They recommend it for fans of Mayhem, Slayer, Dissection, Aura Noir, Celtic Frost, Absu, Gorgoroth, Marduk, Darkthrone, and Sepultura.
PRE-ORDER:
CD: https://shop.horrorpaingoredeath.com/products/ancestor-of-kaos-animal-ritual-cd
Digital: https://hpgd.bandcamp.com/album/animal-ritual
Shirt: https://shop.horrorpaingoredeath.com/products/ancestor-of-kaos-animal-ritual-t-shirt
Bundle: https://hpgd.bandcamp.com/merch/ancestor-of-kaos-animal-ritual-t-shirt-cd-bundle
PRE-SAVE AT SPOTIFY:
https://ffm.to/ancestor
ANCESTOR OF KAOS:
https://www.facebook.com/Ancestorofkaos
https://ancestorofkaos.bandcamp.com/music