48: Deadbird - Twilight Ritual

So I stumbled across Deadbird when myself and my girlfriend went to Baltimore to see a death metal band named Condemn The Infected. I designed their logo and they invited me to see them play at the Ottobar. Next to the Ottobar is a great record store called Reptilian Records which specializes in local and obscure punk and metal. Besides me eating a bad sandwich on the car ride up and having stomach cramps and running across the street to the Exxon to poop in the loudest possible fashion, my experience with Reptilian was pretty good. Like most record stores they had a promotional pile of album/concert posters on a shelf by the register. Since most of the time, these are free I spent a good deal of time pulling out any poster that had decent artwork. The promotional artwork for Twilight Ritual was so striking, I rolled up the poster to adorn my bedroom walls. For a couple of weeks the bird poster hung on my wall while I wondered what an album from a band called Deadbird would sound like. Black metal? Death? Freak Folk? Recently and incidentally, I began looking at first drafts for the 2008 short lists made b y various people and magazine across the internet. One in particular had Deadbird's twilight ritual around 6 or 7. I remember this band. I have their poster on the wall! Hey look I have a personal story attached to this band. I can almost feel myself sweating and shaking while waiting for traffic to pass on South Broadway. No I haven't heard them yet, you see it was a funny story...I was at this record store. Oh you don't want to hear it again do you? Alright I'll listen to it.

Twilight Ritual is what you would expect from a sludge / stoner doom outfit: long songs, massive buildups and a shrill yet strained rasp for vocals. however the rasps soon turn into croons and the melodies surface out of the tar. This is good. Its epic. Epic sludge. Epic Doom. Different than Candlemass, but just as amazing.



Rorschach Sky from The Head and The heart (2005) - fan made video



Live version of "Rule Discordia" from Twilight Ritual.