photos by J. Adams
The debut full length album from Pittsburgh’s RITUAL MASS is more than a collection of songs, it’s a series of calculated assaults on the virtue of the holy. Evolving beyond earlier EP and demo releases, Cascading Misery encapsulates the bludgeoning infliction of pain and the slow peel of skin by flame, rife with both sonic chaos and extinguished hope.
From the outset of album opener “Obsidian Mirror,” the atmosphere is oppressive, thick with a suffocating malaise. There is a sense of something ceremonial at work but not in a way that seeks communion. Rather it’s ordeal as sacrament. Riffs strangle and churn into convulsive submission, oscillating from slow agony to psychotic break, over which a guttural lament so savage it freezes the blood is wrenched through dungeon stone. Each track unfolds like time spent in isolation, bound by chains, the mind slowly unraveling and surrounded by memories of torment both real and imagined.
By the time the epic 14-minute album closer “Disquiet” dissipates into a mass of formless static, RITUAL MASS has dragged you into a world where suffering is not an end but a condition of existence. Cascading Misery is music for the dissolution of hope, the terror of being, and the long march toward death.
Cascading Misery was engineered by Greg Wilkinson at Mr. Smalls Recording Studio in Pittsburgh, with vocal tracking engineered by John Kerr, and mixed/mastered by Wilkinson at his Earhammer Studios in Oakland (Ulthar, Autopsy, Undergang, Vastum). The cover painting, logo, and layout were done by the band’s P. Trona with additional artwork by Bo Orr and Erik Von Bartholomaus and 35mm photography by J. Adams.
The signing of RITUAL MASS to the 20 Buck Spin roster marks the first band from the label’s current base in Pittsburgh. For fans of Vastum, Krypts, Phrenelith, Master, Incantation, Abhorrence, Funebrarum, and Disembowelment, RITUAL MASS is a must-hear band.
Alongside the lead single from the album, “Immeasurable Hell,” the band declares, “While the rest of Cascading Misery deals in spiritual bedlam, ‘Immeasurable Hell’ is a declaration of collapse, the sound of nature and humanity beginning to circle the drain.”
RITUAL MASS’s “Immeasurable Hell” is now streaming on YouTube HERE and Bandcamp HERE.
Cascading Misery will be released on LP, CD, MC, and digitally on September 5th. Preorders can now be placed at the 20 Buck Spin webshop HERE and Bandcamp HERE.
Cascading Misery Track Listing:
1. Obsidian Mirror
2. Immeasurable Hell
3. Looming Shapeless Entity
4. Cascading Misery
5. Frozen Marrow
6. Disquiet
RITUAL MASS Live:
8/30/2025 Century Bar – Philadelphia, PA w/ Noroth, Funeral Leech, Cavern Womb
RITUAL MASS:
N. Dudash – bass, vocals, synth
P. Trona – guitar, backing vocals
R. Mauck – guitar
G. Austin – drums
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