Metal Shock Finland (World Assault )

Italian THE RITUAL formed in 2002 as a Heavy/Thrash project but after many line-up changes, most notably the addition of guitarist Marco Pastorino (of Secret Sphere and Timesword fame), they developed into the powerful force they are known today. Their music is violent, aggressive but also very melodic. Every guitar riff, vocal melody or drum pattern is totally devoted to the groove of each song. The Ritual’s debut album “Beyond The Fragile Horizon” will come out November 2011, via Bakerteam Records. I had a chance to interview The Ritual’s lead guitarist, Marco Pastorino, here’s what we talked about…

Hi Marco, I’m Tarja. Welcome to Metal Shock Finland! How’s your mood today?

Hi Tarja!!! I’m very well!!! I’m excited for this interview! Let’s go!

So, THE RITUAL was formed in 2002 as a Heavy/thrash project, what was the initial idea and input to start this project?

At the beginning we were only a band of teenagers and we were playing all the afternoon just for fun.

First you played the covers of Metallica, Pantera, Van Halen and Deep Purple. But then you decided to write your own songs. Tell me more about this passage.

The band, after playing live for some years felt the desire to do something more than covers. So we began to write our own material, and we really liked to play our own songs.

Your line-up changed quite often in your early years, but when you, Marco joined the band in 2008, I guess we can consider now the line-up’s stabile? Tell me about your band’s spirit of today? And please present me your band-members and their roles..

I joined the band in 2008, and the band changed its lineup the year after with Liuk Abbott as the new bass player. After that, the lineup of the band became stronger than ever; we are a beautiful family, and we stay unite in every moment. Marco Obice, the singer and guitarist, was probably the first who believed in the project as an original band. Unlike us, he listens “soft” music. Liuk Abbott: at the bass, as I said, he really enjoys playing. He is available for everything, and he’s a determinate person in every musical work Luca Devito: at the drums, he is the “lung” of the band, he is the heart of our songs.

Your sound is violent, aggressive but also very melodic… what are the bands that have influenced you the most? And what is The Ritual’s personal touch to make your sound different from the other power/thrash metal bands?

We have always appreciated a lot of bands of every type of metal. We don’t have limits in composing, we take elements of every single band we like. The only thing we really want is to create and play good music. My main influences are Nevermore and the style of the ex-guitarist Jeff Loomis but also the melodies of Sonic Syndacate, the power of Killswitch Engage and Trivium. The strenght of The Ritual is to mix, like you said, powerful riffs, aggressive breakdowns and catchy singing parts.

How you’re organized in songwriting? And from where you take your ideas for song-topics?

The main composers are me and Marco (Obice). We like to write some stuff, and then we talk about the songs and arrange them all togheter, so all of us can add to the songs more personality. Every single note. I write the main part of the music after having a melody in my head all the day.

Recently you’ve signed a deal with BakerTeam Records. How do you see this contract changes the band’s future?

We are really happy for this choice! BakerTeam is a new label, but managed by great people, with a great experience! I think that the name of our band with this label will help us to grow in the future…

Your new album “Beyond The Fragile Horizon” will come out next month, via BakerTeam. Just a couple of days ago The album was reviewed by MSFinland. It says e.g.: ”Music for young people…”. Anything you’d want to say about this supposition? What is your rapport with your fans and audience?

The sound is very modern, it takes a lot from bands that in the last years changed the view and the way to think and write metal music. I partially agree with you. The type of music that we play is very “young”, but I think that the music goes beyond this things. The type of music does not count, the very important part of the music is the emotions that you feel listening to a song, and this is ageless.

Tecnically speaking, how this album differs to your earlier sounds? And what about the title song “Beyond The Fragile Horizon”, why this choice? Any chance to have a brief track-by-track?

This album has been written and re-written again, until we found this solution that we all liked very much. The band continues to evolve day by day, but we think that this album is like a great example of the music that we wanna do. “Beyond the fragile horizon” is a simple intro track that prepares the “battle” of the album… So here we go, “Show me what you can do” is a very energic catchy song with a powerful melodic chorus.  “Jason on the river” is an old song that I wrote time ago and ri-arranged in The Ritual’s style. “Hysteria & Madness”, for me is the hardest song of the album, with heavy riffs and obviously some melodic parts that we like to use. In the middle of the song there is a section with some blast beats and riffs that reminds bands like Mastodon, Between The Buried and Me and Lamb of God.  “Shoot Me” is another catchy song, and it received very good opinions for the vocal part and the instrumental part, more technical than the other songs. “Without” is the ballad of the album, that grows slowly until it becomes more catchy and heavy. In this song there is my favorite solo. “Togheter” is a song written by Marco, and it is very complete for our style. “The Liar” is born from my love for Jeff Loomis’ playing, from the riffs to the solo. Marco’s voice, in my opinion, gives a very personal element to the song. “The Slave” is a very simple song, but we really like to play it live. “Nothing” is the same is the great ending of the album, the oldest song we  have composed.

And what are your expectations about this album?

We are very hopeful. We are a new band, we have to improve. We all know that this won’t be easy, there are hundreds of talented bands in every corner of the world, but we wanna take our place and let the world know our music.

What can you tell me about your studio sessions and about the production in generally?

We recorded the album at Federico Pennazzato’s Authoma Studios, Secret Sphere, Odd Dimension and Hell in the Club’s drummer and we produced togheter the entire album. He also mixed it. About the mastering, we relied on Simone Mularoni (DGM, Empyrios), who gave to the album the power we were looking for. As I said, me and Marco wrote all the tracks, with the arrangements of all the band.

The cover-art, please tell me about it and the idea behind it…

We are very proud of that; we gave only some little advices to our friend Davide Nadalin (Nerve Design) and he draw this kickass cover. The album cover is a mix of the classic heavy metal covers and the modern metal covers, like metalcore. The flames embraces the faces and all that remains.

Just going back to our review, it ends up with words: “This is not a Testament but a promise of hope: Beyond the fragile horizon, there is a future.” It can be understood in two ways, talking about Testament as a band, and in the figurative sense… so what is your promise of hope for the future?

I think that our sound hasn’t got too much Testament’s influence, but I’m very happy of your review; it means that the album has been totally understood. We all want that this is only the beginning of our adventure. Now we’re focusing on the best way to spread our music to the public, playing live much as possible… I wanna tell you that we already have new material to play live and I think that we wanna work on it for the next release.

How you’re going to support this album? A tour, a video?

Our brand new video, Show Me What I can do, is out (now also in USA) since only two weeks, and it received very positive comments. At the moment we’re trying to promote the album and with its release we will begin a series of gigs. Today the best way to promote an album is to play live…

Marco, besides THE RITUAL you play also in SECRET SPHERE and BEJELIT. How you divide your time between these 3 bands?

surely it is not easy to organize every project the best you can, but with a little planning, i have never problems. working with tree bands at the same time does not compromise the final performace. Each band has its own time to develop new album, tour, promotion etc., as mentioned, you need only to organize yourself!

If it wasn’t a guitar, what would you do today?

My life is built around the music; I’m always inside this wonderful world called rock’n’roll. But the guitar is only a part of me, I love to sing and this is a passion that I feed day by day…

Now the last question, how would you like to close this interview? Any message you wanna give to our readers?

I want to thank you, Tarja, Metal Shock and all your followers!! Hope that our work can strike you and let our music fill your hearts! We hope to see you under the stage very soon! R’N’R!

Thanks Marco, it was a pleasure to interview you. Hope to see you soon on the road…

Interview by Tarja Virmakari

To read MSFinland‘s review of THE RITUAL, please go HERE.

The Ritual – Show Me What You Can Do (Official Video)