Ashtoreth are a solo project from Belgium that has had music reviewed before in this zine and on this recording plays a mixture of ritual, ambient, drone, minimalism, experimental and doom metal and this is a review of his 2021 album "Rites III-IV" which was released by Cyclic Law.
An almost silent sound starts off the album before adding in some throat singing which also gives the music more of a shamanistic and animalist atmosphere and atmospheric sounding drones. Both of the tracks are also very long and epic in length while the whispered vocals also give the album more of a ritualistic feeling.
When synths are utilized they also bring in elements of ambient while the clean guitars also take the album into more of an experimental direction when they are utilized. When electric guitars are utilized they also add in touches of doom metal along with the grim vocals also adding in a touch of black metal when they are introduced on the recording, melodic chants can also be heard briefly and both of the tracks also sound very different from each other and there is also a brief use of stringed instruments.
On this recording Ashtoreth takes ritual, ambient, minimalism, experimental and doom metal and mixes them together to create a very esoteric sounding recording. The production sounds very dark while the song themes focus on the occult, shamanistic and animalist paths.
In my opinion this is another great sounding recording form Ashtoreth and if you are a fan of ritual, ambient, drone, minimalism, experimental and doom metal, you should check out this album. 8 out of 10.
