Formation Ritual – The Shifting Dust

 

Formation Ritual – The Shifting Dust
Self released – 2022
Rock, Stoner, Metal, Psych, Prog, Doom
Rated: ****

The hombre behind Formation Ritual and its debut album The Shifting Dust is multi-instrumentalist Jason Tapia. Responsible for forming the band, writing the album and delivering guitar, organ, Moog synth, Mellotron and awesome vocals. He asked his friend Jose Perez to help produce this little diamond as well as deliver the drums. And another buddy called Joe Mora, from House Of Broken Promises, is the bass player on duty. Together they produced an album that uses every little aspect of proto metal, classic hardrock and the psychedelic doom of yore. And those influences shall be apparent from the first track on. And opener It Summons You and subsequent second track Coming Of The Tide will charm all you heavy rock loving fiends without any doubt in my mind. It’s third track Second Rate Gods though, that will set both the band and the listeners on a different plain altogether. It reveals that Mr. Tapia feels in every fiber of every one of his bones that he is a storyteller and needs to get his visions out. Second Rate Gods starts out a like a slow cowboy song to accompany one as he and his trusty horse treks across the prairie, onwards, towards a battle with a magical gunslinger or indeed a Second Rate God. Shifting color later in the track only helps paint a darker blood red sky. It feels like a hymn for a barbarously and apocalyptic mythology we are still unaware of. And longing to know more about… But Formation Ritual simply continues after that awesome track going ever more into that vintage, full of rust colors, the blues of the olden days and the classic rock. And every one of those tracks that follow is heavy and heavy is good! Even sixth track Oleander, which implores a bit more folk and space influences, will tune you in and turn you on! Oleander will often feel like a that magic hour at sunrise, when those first rays summon daybreak and slowly draws the curtains on the other dimensions once again more… Formation Ritual might have been formed due to the pandemic, the lockdown that followed and Tapia’s other band throwing in the towel; but if The Shifting Dust is the result… Well, we might just need to have ourselves another lockdown…

(Written by JK)

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