Review by Vladimir on February 15, 2024.

Although I have never really cared that much to check out blackened doom metal bands, I was lucky enough to stumble on a few examples which really had something interesting to offer and I do believe that there are still many other examples out there. One interesting recommendation I got was the Norwegian/Polish band Rites of Regress, which present themselves as “blackened sløøvv doom”. Their debut album Dust is set to be released on March 11th, 2024 via Third Eye Temple, and this album will be an exemplary release that demonstrates the kind of ideas which their aforementioned style suggests. 

Rites Of Regress displays a very somber but also teeth-grinding heavy blackened doom metal with a heavily distorted aura surrounding it, expressed through its doomy guitar riffs, slow but commanding and banging drums, and heavily distorted harsh vocals. The songs really have that ominous vibe which dictates the forthcoming darkest hour where nothing is real but death and horror, and only true fear knows what it awaits. Three out of four songs on this album are all in Polish language, with the only exception being the second track 'The Pentagram' which also contains the audio recording of Alister Crowley’s infamous Pentagram speech that is also the lyrics for the song, and it is definitely the gloomiest track on the entire album. Speaking of doom and gloom, that is what truly dominates on this album from one track to another, with each riff keeping the atmosphere strong, consistent and flowing from section to section. This musical flow is definitely one of the biggest highlights of this album, which succeeds at bringing the album to a powerful conclusion with the closing track 'Do Końca W Czerń', giving this whole experience a grand payoff. 

While the album for the most part feels a bit formulaic and doesn’t really offer a very dynamic songwriting, what saves it from being entirely generic or uninspiring is how each song conveys its own feeling with a different flavor of impending doom and horror to it. Funnily enough, this album is actually pretty short with its total of 4 tracks, but with the overall length of each track, it leads the album’s runtime to 29 minutes and 9 seconds, which for a doom metal album can feel a bit shorter than usual, but it naturally feels like 40 minutes. What also contributes a lot to the album’s overall shock and dread is the cover art that uses a picture of the infamous historic event of the LZ 129 Hindenburg zeppelin crash in 1937, which as we all know was previously used by Led Zeppelin for their self-titled debut album. While the depiction of the cover art doesn’t really have any connections to the misanthropic lyrical themes of the album, on the other hand, as a horrific piece of history it can truly be considered fitting for the musical output of Rites Of Regress and in some ways makes it almost. The album has a very standard modern-day doom metal sound production with the heavy fuzz overdriven guitar tone, distorted bass and vocals, which is still quite effective in delivering a more “black metal” fused approach. 

It's hard to summarize how I feel about this album, because on the one hand I liked it very much, but on the other hand I wished that we could have gotten a bit more out of it, with maybe just a couple more tracks that could have expanded the tracklist. Although some people might say things like “less is more” or similar just to disregard everything I’ve just said, I do believe that there are people who like me would crave for more just to get an additional dose of musical satisfaction. However, despite all that I have just said, that doesn’t mean that this album isn’t great on its own, because it certainly did a very good job at presenting an attractive piece of work that should definitely be carried over to the band’s future releases that could potentially offer more. If you like doom metal fused with some “black metal” styled vocals, you should definitely check out Dust by Rites Of Regress. 

Rating: 8.3 out of 10