"Ritual" track listing:
01. A Shrine To Madness
02. Moonlight Equilibrium
03. On Stirring Seas Of Salted Blood
04. Conspiring With The Damned
05. The Window
06. Carbonized In Cruciform
07. Den Of The Picquerist
08. Malenchanments Of The Necrosphere
09. The Grave Robber's Work
10. The Raven
11. Great Burning Nullifier
12. Blood In The Ink
Frontman Trevor Strnad considers "Ritual" "the most focused THE BLACK DAHLIA MURDER strike of all time."
"The whole thread of the songs is more tied together than ever before," explains Strnad. "Part of it was kind of like, 'What can we do that's the most BLACK DAHLIA MURDER thing? What's going to be the most quintessential BLACK DAHLIA MURDER thing we can do?' That's kind of what we set our foothold in. And 'Ritual', it just lends itself to that — it's mysticism and magic and all of that. Everyone has an association with some kind of ritual, so we just thought it was the next logical step."
Recalling the writing process that led to "Ritual"'s eventual 12 songs, Strnad says that "every song that got brought forth was exciting and more three-dimensional, more twists and turns, more surprises. There's more ups and downs and taking people on a journey this time."
Co-founder Brian Eschbach, meanwhile, credits the presence of fellow guitarist Ryan Knight, who joined the band for "Deflorate", with helping to move things forward on this particular venture.
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THE BLACK DAHLIA MURDER has crammed quite a bit into its 10 years together — five albums, three EPs and a DVD (2009's "Majesty") — and the group members themselves seem a bit surprised by what they've wrought. "Yeah, initially we thought we were going to get together on Sundays and try to put a song together every week," Eschbach recalls. "We never dreamed of being able to live off the band." But Strnad says it didn't take long to sense that they could.
"We had the vision that we wanted to take the band to more people, that we wanted to have something bigger than just playing at the crappy ass local bar," he explains. "Being a metal band, I think, is being an underdog. To play music you know is not digestible on purpose, to preach to a certain kind of depraved person...It's a lofty goal to have anyone want to hear what we have to say. We've been really, really lucky, but at the same time we're always looking to the future and trying to do what we do better and better.
"And I would say this time, with 'Ritual', we really nailed it even harder than we have before."
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