When I put this cd in, I had no idea what to expect to be perfectly honest. I reached deep into my bag of material to review and decided for today, to skip over all of the items I knew to be calmer, ambient and soundscapes. Today I required something darker, more chaotic. So I chose Whitehorse's 'Live Ritual : July 25th 2011' based solely on the cover which utilizes their unholy beast design. I had never heard of them prior and based on the rest of what I had in the bag, was expecting more noise than anything. Well, I definitely got some noise, it was just wrapped in a buffalo skin blanket of crushing doom metal. Whitehorse seriously have perfected an absolutely brutiful sound. It blasts through in a thick wall of hate and fuck; truly an epic storm of devastation has been brewed here. The guitars just grind the soul into powder, and the underlying layer of noise washed through the brain like boric acid (in an awesome way). The vocals had a really great middle ground; not to deep and hollow but not too high and thin as some bands tend to do. They didn't get me as worked up as the music itself, but definitely better than the average. Definitely a monument for the ages, this Live Ritual brings the thunder.