The well-known Detroit post-punk/gothic rock/death rock band Ritual Howls came out with a new album in 2016, and it packed some pretty fine material from start to finish. Something that was to be expected from a band of their caliber. While saying this the album still doesn't quite reach the hights of their self-titled EP from 2012 which remains their best release by a long margin. Nevertheless ''Into The Water'' offers some pretty fine noisy dark post-punk for that matter as well.
The album starts off with a noisy post-punk track titled ''Scatter The Scars'', and works pretty fine for me with its movement in-between post-punk, death rock and even lo-fi noise-rock elements. The following track ''Nervous Hands'' offers some more noisy synth infused melodic material, and does this in a pretty addictive way to be fair. Another track with a noise-rock vibe is ''Bound By Light'', while ''God Swamp'' is a track with a fine bass section and a pretty clear-cut postpunkish americana feel to it as well. The best track on the entire album though is probably the sixth track ''Park Around The Corner''. It packs an addictive repetitive bass section and some fine echoing psyched guitar bits throughout. Thus reminding some of their earlier material for me with its almost darkened krautrockish post-punk ways. ''Spirit Murder'' is another track with a rather fine repetitive bass section and similar structures to the aforementioned track, but still missing something that made ''Park Around The Corner'' the stand out track of the entire album. The album for that matter comes to its conclusion with a 9 minute long track ''Going Upstate'', which packs some minimal dark coldwavish material.
All in all ''Into The Water'' is probably one of the best Ritual Howls albums, but still doesn't quite match its earliest material. As far as post-punk/gothic rock/death rock goes, then it is probably one of the best releases of 2016, while to be fair the album does not go about anything revolutionary, and keeps on doing what Ritual Howls have always been doing.
Some related links:
Bandcamp: https://ritualhowls.bandcamp.com/album/into-the-water
