PALE HORSE RITUAL - Diabolic Formation [FULL ALBUM] 2025
Pale Horse Ritual – Diabolic Formation Review
By Creeping Ivy
2025 must have been a challenging year to occupy the Sabbath-worship lane. Ozzy’s passing on July 22nd—seventeen days after the Back to the Beginning concert—hit metaldom hard, but it surely hit harder for bands that treat Master of Reality as a sacred text. Videos from the concert, especially of a throned Ozzy performing one last time with the original Sabbath lineup, provide solace, as do covers from legends like Metallica and Slayer.1 Tragically, 2025 has revitalized Sabbath; Sabbath-inspired bands walk a tightrope of honoring the original and wilting under its renascence. Merging into the Sabbath lane late in the year is Pale Horse Ritual, a Canadian quartet. After releasing a slew of singles and an EP in 2024, this Hamilton, Ontario band has dropped their debut full-length, Diabolic Formation.2 While it doesn’t need to break much new ground, the album does need to aid the grieving process.
Pale Horse Ritual offers a bit more than straight Sabbath worship. While Diabolic Formation primarily deals in stoner/doom metal, much of its instrumentation hearkens to 70s psychedelic rock. Lead guitarist James Matheson, for example, lays down some total psych freakout solos (“Deflowered,” “Bloody Demon”). Spooky organ chords also contribute to the album’s vintage atmosphere (“D.E.D,” “A Beautiful End”). Together, these elements evoke Iron Butterfly and other such proto-metal acts. Nevertheless, Pale Horse Ritual ground their sound in pure Iommian goodness. Instrumental opener “Deflowered” announces Diabolic Formation’s riff-forward orientation, built around modulations of a simple yet satisfying flat-2 line. The descending chromatic figure of closer “A Beautiful End” is an album highlight, dragging listeners down to a warm, fuzzy hell. Similar to a contemporary band like Monolord, Pale Horse Ritual unabashedly revels in the undeniable power of a familiar riff.
Alas, Diabolic Formation feels familiar to the point where one-to-one comparisons can frequently be made. “Wickedness,” the first real ‘song’ on the album, provides the earliest instance of Sabbath aping. Its verse riff and accompanying vocal melody exactly replicate the first half of the “Iron Man” hook. The lyrics are also imitative; though not a direct lift, the narrator imploring his audience to ‘Call [him] Lucifer’ echoes “N.I.B.” Less overtly mimetic is “Bloody Demon.” Its main riff brings “Electric Funeral” to mind, and lyrics about the ‘prince of darkness’ and watchful ‘snake eyes’ summon Ozzy and Lemmy. Beyond Sabbath, Pale Horse Ritual comes close to sampling Iron Butterfly in “D.E.D.,” which recalls the iconic “In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida” phrase. Unfortunately, Diabolic Formation invites listeners to hunt for references.
Pale Horse Ritual do break from their Sabbathy mould in intriguing ways. Vocalist/bassist Paco is not Ozzy; he possesses more of a chill, mid-range croon. Paco effortlessly delivers catchy choruses, heightened by harmonies from rhythm guitarist Will Adams (“Wickedness,” “D.E.D.”). But he very much is Geezer; Paco’s fills and wah-wah stomps naturally play off Jonah Santa-Barbara’s drumming, putting these grooves into the Butler-Ward pocket (“Deflowered,” “Wickedness”). The biggest curveball on Diabolic Formation, however, is “Save You,” the mid-album acoustic break. Its delicate fingerpicking, ghostly whispers, and dreamy synths conjure a surprising artist from the 70s: Nick Drake. The on-the-nose, anti-religion lyrics draw attention away from the suppleness of Paco’s voice and Adams’s guitarwork. Nevertheless, it’s a beautiful track showcasing a side of their sound I wish Pale Horse Ritual explored further.
Diabolic Formation flourishes and flounders due to its familiarity. Even in a subgenre rooted in remembrance, there are too many direct echoes of Sabbath, Iron Butterfly, and the like here. Listeners might feel paranoid that every riff and chorus is plagiarized. And yet, Diabolic Formation is a good sounding record, with cozy tones and comforting atmosphere. If 2025 left you reeling from the loss of Ozzy, then Diabolic Formation is worth 39 minutes of your time. As a new purveyor of an old sound, Pale Horse Ritual can help you adjust to a new normal.
Rating: 2.5/5.0
DR: 7 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: Black Throne Productions
Websites: Bandcamp | Facebook | Instagram
Releases Worldwide: November 28th, 2025
#25 #2025 #blackSabbath #blackThroneProductions #canadianMetal #diabolicFormation #doomMetal #ironButterfly #metallica #monolord #nickDrake #nov25 #paleHorseRitual #protoMetal #psychedelicRock #review #reviews #slayer #stonerMetal #thePaleHorses
Völur & Cares – Breathless Spirit Review
By Twelve
“Avant-garde doom metal from Canada. Do I really need to say more to pique your interest?” So said I a little under five years ago, closing out my Things You Might Have Missed feature for Völur’s Death Cult. The Toronto-based project launched itself to the top of my end-of-year list in 2020, owing to their expert fusion of an impressive blend of sounds and genres primarily rooted in doom metal. Wielding the violin like a sledgehammer, Death Cult featured intelligent, clever compositions that really impressed me in 2020. Now, at last, they’re back for their fourth full-length, Breathless Spirit, with one key change: a collaboration with Cares—UK/Canadian producer James Beardmore—whose influence aims to transcend an already-impressive trio to Valhallan heights. However do they fare?
But first, a correction: in reviewing Death Cult, I noted that “the guitars do not dominate, nor do they crush the listener; instead, they unsettle, distort, and act as anchor for the vocals and electric violins that make up the true meat of the music.” Völur has no guitarist—only Lucas Gadke (Blood Ceremony), who plays bass (in addition to vocals and piano). The electric violins are indeed the “true meat of the music;” Völur create their uniquely haunting sound through intense distortion on Laura Bates’s violin and viola,1 giving them a surprisingly heavy metal basis to work with—certainly I’d never have thought there’s no guitar in the blackened doom mania that is “Windbourne Sorcery II,” and I’m still not 100% sure I believe it. Previously, I compared the group to a gloomy “Apocapyse Orchestra meets King Goat” project, but, in hindsight, Apocalyptica might have been a better base point to use.
Realistically, though, none of that matters because Völur is unique in too many ways to build adequate comparisons, and Cares has only strengthened that position. Where Death Cult emphasized the heavier, doom metal basis of Völur’s material, Breathless Spirit leans more classical, a change that highlights the incredible range of the music, passing also through doom metal, black metal, folk, jazz, and drone along the way—and all of it done with “just” a violinist, bassist, and drummer (Justin Ruppel). What’s extra interesting (on an already very interesting record) is that Cares contributes piano, synthesizers, theremin, and textures. His production adds layer upon layer of grimy, modern darkness that contributes heavily to the metal feel of Breathless Spirit. It is, put simply, extremely experimental. It also works magnificently.
From the classically-inspired2 “Hearth,” Breathless Spirit’s instrumental intro whose motifs just keep reappearing, to the towering doom metal conclusion of “Death in Solitude,” Völur are as engaging as they are unpredictable. I mentioned that “Windbourne Sorcery II” has the album’s blackened highlight, with Bates’s utterly unhinged shrieks atop a steady alarm of urgency from her violin. That same song has an almost funeral buildup, a chilling passage I compare favorably with Bell Witch’s Mirror Reaper3. The title track is the highlight for me; Gadke’s roars are front and center, and all of his vocals have depth and command to them, recalling Barren Earth’s On Lonely Towers.4 Guest vocals from Amy Bowles (ex-Hollow Earth) are a fantastic counter to his baritone cleans, and the brief improvizations a third of the way in is chaotic and delightful. You can dance to the haunting middle section, but it ends on a sense of heavy, epic urgency. Whatever style they try, Völur & Cares can’t help but create something beautiful. Much credit also belongs to Ruppel, whose measured drumming keeps Breathless Spirit grounded in a steady, doom-laden theme that serves it well.
I’ve run out of words, but there’s so much more to say. Breathless Spirit is a hard album to describe with any level of brevity. It explores worlds I’ve only hinted at here, and is much stronger than the sum of its parts. It’s not perfect—”On Drangey” is perhaps a touch too long for my preferences—but it hardly has to be. Breathless Spirit should enshrine Völur and Cares as experts in the experimental. Equal parts beautiful, haunting, and dark, Breathless Spirit defies my vocabulary—you simply must listen for yourself.
Rating: 4.0/5.0
DR: 6 | Format Reviewed: 192 kbps mp3
Label: Blackthrone Productions
Websites: volur.bandcamp.com | facebook.com/VolurDoom
Releases Worldwide: August 8th, 2025
#2025 #40 #ApocalypseOrchestra #Apocalyptica #Aug25 #BarrenEarth #BellWitch #BlackthroneProductions #BloodCeremony #BreathlessSpirit #CanadianMetal #Cares #DoomMetal #Drone #FolkMetal #HollowEarth #Jazz #KingGoat #Review #Reviews #Volur #VölurCares
Sons of Arrakis – Volume II Review
By Iceberg
Break out the questionable popcorn buckets everyone, we’ve got Dune-themed stoner rock inbound! Since 2019, Montreal quartet Sons of Arrakis have been preaching the Gospel of Herbert. Dropping Volume I in 2022, they made a quick turnaround with follow-up Volume II1 and this one managed to wriggle its way out of the sump like a determined sand trout. The promo language describes the band as “melange rock2 and cinematographic sci-fi rock,” but my eyes were drawn to the Black Sabbath and Queens of the Stone Age name drops. I could use some dusty, bloodshot grooves in my life, and what’s not to like about songs fawning over gargantuan, drug-dealing worms?
Sons of Arrakis pull their sound from a desert much closer to home: Southern California. Queens of the Stone Age and Them Crooked Vultures are clear influences here, especially with the slithering guitar lines that refuse to stay in one place long. But the biggest—and most contemporary—comparison I find would be King Buffalo, albeit with the prog dial turned down a few notches. Volume I saw the band flirting with stoner doom, but with the exception of a few riffs in “Blood for Blood” and “Burn Into Blaze,” most of what you’ll get here is psychedelic, stoner rock. Not that this is a negative, per se. If anything the riffcraft of Frédéric Couture and Francis Duchesne fares better than before, balancing rhythmic chug with leaping diversions and fuzz-driven divebombs. And befitting the gorgeous cover art, this record sounds excellent, especially Mathieu Racine’s all-natural drum kit, balancing perfectly against Victor Lepage’s rumbling bass and the warble-and-fuzz of the guitars.
For a relatively young band, Sons of Arrakis feel comfortable with both sound and direction on Volume II. Groove and swagger rule this empire of sand, often mid-paced and always lashed to an admirably constructed riff (“Scattering,” “Beyond The Screen of Illusion,” “Burn Into Blaze”). The verse of “Beyond The Screen of Illusion” echoes Mastodon’s “Blood and Thunder,” and “Metamorphosis” reminds me of Second Stage Turbine Blade-era Coheed. I adore the tone of their guitar leads, which are generally too short to call solos and are woefully underutilized on the whole (“Scattering,” “Metamorphosis”). Frédéric Couture sticks strictly to clean vocals, utilizing a reedy, nasal tone not unlike what one would hear in Uncle Acid and the Deadbeats, and while this may be a polarizing choice, it works within the style. Only taking up a lean—near-starved—33 minutes of music, all the pieces should be in place for a pleasant excursion into the deep desert. So what’s the catch?
Sons of Arrakis rarely change gears from their tried and true formula, and this causes much of Volume II to congeal into a single, fuzzed-out amalgamation. Opening duo “Scattering” and “High Handed Enemy” contrast nicely, placing a mid-paced stone rock anthem against a more down-tempo, atmospheric number. But past that, tracks begin to blur together in both tempo and swinging groove (“Beyond The Screen of Illusion,” “Interlude I, ”“Retaliation”). This is also a good place to mention the two interludes contained herein, which add little to the conversation other than a really fun riff (“Interlude I”) and ethereal noodling (“Interlude II”). Closer “Caladan” is a beautiful piece for acoustic guitar and swirling, faintly menacing synths, but the denouement is unearned since its preceding track, “Burn Into Blaze,” never really reaches any heights that require descent. And finally—and this is mostly a personal gripe—nothing in the music or the lyrics really screams DUNE! to me, which is a bit of a letdown for a band with such a pointed name. Without the anchoring of the concept, and without any real peaks and valleys to the songwriting, Volume II comes off as a great collection of tracks, but not a cohesive album.
Volume II shows that Sons of Arrakis have all the tools to make a great record, but need to reach out of their comfort zone. There are some sharp riffs lurking in “Blood for Blood” and “Burn Into Blaze,” but they’re in the minority amongst their homogeneous brethren. Fans of the stoner and psychedelic variants should give this a spin, they may find more to love than I did. I’ll keep my eye out for the band’s future work, but I foresee this album fading into my rearview as a shimmering mirage.
Rating: 2.5/5.0
DR: 7 | Format Reviewed: WAV
Label: Black Throne Productions
Websites: sonsofarrakis.com | facebook.com | Bandcamp
Releases Worldwide: June 7th, 2024
#25 #2024 #BlackSabbath #BlackThroneProductions #CandianMetal #Jun24 #KingBuffalo #PsychedelicRock #QueensOfTheStoneAge #Review #Reviews #SonsOfArrakis #StonerDoom #StonerRock #ThemCrookedVultures #VolumeII
Shardik Media
GravityLord
Angry Metal Guy
