Ritual Clearing have returned, building off of the cold depravity of their 2020 demo and now unleashing their debut full-length effort, Penitence. Continuing their unholy alliance with Eternal Death, this new record showcases six epic tracks of dark, brooding black metal. The band's noble influences they displayed across that well-received first demo - Bathory, Sacramentum, and Lord Belial - have been built upon and refined here, revealing riff labyrinths not unlike the cult '90s work of Sorhin but further fleshed out by bouts of nearly hardcore-punk mania and especially a raw hideousness not unlike their American brethren in the Black Twilight Circle. Still, Ritual Clearing and clearly their own masters, and the alternately linear / darting depths of Penitence open wide to devour the listener in hypnotic, harrowing splendor. Still as melodic-yet-cutting as ever, it's not surprising that the album was written during the grim landscape of the global plague; there's an undeniable sense of dread across Penitence, laced with a resigned melancholia (sickly) colored by opportunely timed acoustics. RIFFS for days, Ritual Clearing provide this offering as the overture to a sick and dying world.