Ashes are usually what’s left at the end. When the fire has burnt out and everything that it’s consumed has been taken, ashes are all you’re left with. There’s a finality to something being reduced to ashes. Few things feel more like a definitive ending than everything distinctive about something being burnt away from it….
It doesn’t take long into Ritual of Ash, the debut longplayer from Australian death metallers Ashen, to realize that these dudes know what the Hell they are doing. If you’ve listened to enough death metal over the years, Ashen’s influences should be pretty readily apparent upon firing up their first LP. Pretty much any band that…