First inclination here was to wearily mention His Hero Is Gone for the millionth time, but Anti Ritual actually have more going on than just that. True, at its core ‘Expel The Leeches’ does owe a significant debt to ‘Monuments To Thieves’, but the band have at least had the initiative to take that clay and mould it into different shapes. Black metal and grindcore frequently bare their jagged teeth, while elsewhere the occasional progressive tangle makes me think of a band like Burst or Knut. For all of this, though, there’s a certain stodginess that prevents me from going thoroughly gaga for this release, but the passion is there, the sound is huge and in terms of politics you can’t argue with a band bellowing ‘no human is illegal’ into your ear and putting a ruddy great guillotine on their album cover. Pretty decent, all told.
