“…let us steal their souls.” Ritual Debasement by Varigator

With 9 tracks of in-your-face darkwave, Varigator’s first album Ritual Debasement is here to spread some sweet electronic corruption.

Ritual Debasement. The name caught me before the synths did. With a title you’d expect on a blackmetal album, Varigator brings heavy bass tunes with sampling from video games, anime, and my personal favorite, Warhammer 40k. The mixing is solid, with the sound never feeling overly repetitive. There is some seriously skilled rhythm making going on, with opening track Ray of Disintegration being a kick in the ears and mind.

This is the type of dark synthwave that brings strong bass, the type you feel in your bones, and would feel right at home in the seedy future of club of your choice where the drinks are synthetic and the women will kill you for your organs and blood. Like those clubs, this may not be everyone’s vodka of choice. You weirdo. It’s a combination of light hearted EBM (WARNING is a fun well made piece of music) and sinister corrupting layered synths (the track Black Market will creep up on ya).

All synthwave and its offshoots are heavily inspired by the 80/90’s stylistically, and ritual Debasement is no different, but while you have tracks like Overload which is homage to the video games we grew up with, you have the title track Ritual Debasement which takes audio from the video game Warhammer 40k: Dawn of War. On his Facebook page (link) he even stated 40k was a big inspiration for him. Each track feels like it was personal in that way; taking his loves and putting them into audio format. As a big fucking nerd, there is nothing I like to see more.

The only nitpick I have with the album (for there must be one) is the lack of brutality. What does that mean? For something with an almost blackmetal like appearance, and with the bandcamp saying it’s Brutal Unrelenting Darksynth (with blackmetal even being a tag on the bottom of the page), I didn’t hear the elements of metal. This simply could be a new interpretation of metal I don’t understand for I am ancient and terrible, or the metal bits simply don’t get across when implanted into an electronic music medium.

Fun? Yes. Dark? Yes. Well crafted? Hell yeah. Brutal? Not so much. Should you buy it? Shut up and buy it! I’m really looking forward to hearing what Varigator creates in the future. Check out his Bandcamp here. Now follow Eliphas and steal some souls for Chaos.