Review by Daniel for Rippikoulu - Musta seremonia (1993)

I hadn't revisited this cult classic of a mid-90's demo tape in many years but Ben recently asked me for my opinion on it & I noticed that I hadn't rated it on Metal Academy yet so I felt it was about time I gave it another sitting. The six tracks included run for just over half an hour which is a good length for this kind of release &, while the production may be really raw, it loses none of it's effectiveness. In fact, I feel that the crushing down-tuned riffage & depressive atmospherics are only enhanced by it which is the sign of a true underground gem. I really love the deep death growls too as they're wonderfully monstrous but don't sound generic in the slightest.

Musically, Rippikoulu's sound is a tale of two cities. On the one hand you have the dark, suffocating doom/death of bands like Spectral Voice, Winter & diSEMBOWELMENT, only it's been combined with the grimy, mid-paced, tremolo-picked conventional death metal of early 90’s Bolt Thrower & the outcome is nothing short of splendid. Perhaps the lack of production can make a lot of the material sound a touch samey but it's only a short release & the couple of more atmospheric highlights that close out the demo certainly stand out, particularly the spectacular "Pimeys yllä Jumalan maan" which about as good as doom/death gets. If I'm being picky I'd say that the faster parts are a little less effective than the doomier sections but this is a quality effort from a band that clearly showed a lot of unfulfilled potential.