Artist: Blood Rites
Country: Chile
Label: Life Eternal Productions
Formats: LP / CD
Year: 2026
After two demo tapes, from 2018 and 2020 respectively, and a 7” EP in 2021 via Zzooouhh Records, Blood Rites’ career came to a complete standstill. It was a shame, really, because the few tracks that had been released on tapes and that small vinyl record certainly left a taste for more. I can’t deny that this Chilean Black Metal had slipped my mind a bit. But, now, five years on, the band is back, and with nothing less than a full-length album being released by Life Eternal on both CD and vinyl.
The core of the band has not really suffered from their five year absence. On Blood Rites’ previously released material it was already overly clear that it was mainly based on European Black Metal. But for a change, it wasn’t the umpteenth Darkthrone or Mayhem knock-off. Plus, while sounding quite European, it still had that South American bravado.
So, no Mayhem and no Darkthrone. Instead the band opted for that early 90s sound of the earliest work of Ancient Rites and Impaled Nazarene. While the first is mostly heard in the riffs, it is the crazy, rabid vocal style that reminds so much of Impaled Nazarene that you’d be tempted to check whether Mr. Slutty himself was not behind the microphone here. It might not surprise that these snarly, barking and downright evil vocals, pitch-shifted parts included, go particularly well with the intense chaos-ridden South American character of the music. That frantic nature, as often linked to those bands like Sarcófago and Vulcano, is what adds lots to the overall authenticity of the band.
Life Eternal Productions has been a good label for many a great band that feeds on the long lost tradition and feeling of Black Metal’s early steps, but Blood Rites is without a doubt one of the best records the German label has put forth so far. If you can’t get enough of that incredibly wild drumming of old Ancient Rites and Impaled Nazarene or the Mediterranean vibe of early Necromantia and Varathron, this is not an album you should let pass.
