The True Plague

The name ‘Aornos’ comes from a fortress in contemporary Pakistan, more or less ‘close’ to the Himalayan mountains and the Indus river. It was a fortified site known for the passing of Alexander the Great and his final siege (or at least one of the latest ones), some centuries before our modern era. It is the moniker as well for a productive outfit by Tatrai ‘Algras’ Csaba, a Hungarian multi-instrumentalist who is member of Frost too, and who used to be in bands like Carcharoth and Bornholm.

Ritual Genocide are a pretty young (formed in 2013) three-piece (drummer Immolater, vocalist / bassist S19 and guitar player Hydra73) from Reno, Nevada, sharing members with Blasphemous Creation and Terroreactor. In 2015 they had a split with Phosphore Blanc (Invidious Allegiance; two tracks on this EP, by the way, did appear on that split), and now we can enjoy their first six-track mini-album, Commencement Towards Annihilation.

Satanath Records release, and do appreciate that, quite a lot of splits too. I like it because it might fill up a hiatus for a band’s relative silence in between two albums, for example. Or a split contains rare or old and hard-to-get stuff. Or just because it offers some variety. Or it might give you the opportunity to meet bands you haven’t been listening to before. Or… Nope, this is not an essay on my opinion on split collaborations, but it’s a review for a threesome…