The Ritualist is probably exactly what you know and expect at this point, what with retro traditional metal acts like Ghost, Devil and In Solitude:

They’re minor-chorded, Sabbath-worshiping alleged-Satanists….

OR:

“Pink Sabbath”/ “Black Floyd”

AND POSSIBLY:

“Deep Skynyrd”/ “Lynyrd Purple”….

What’s I’m trying to say is:

Hour of 13 are best classed as late 70s/ early 80s-ish psychedelic detuned proto-metal/ heavy rock–

They’re Graveyard’s weird cousin, that sorta looks like them, and yet not really, that no one has ever seen in the daylight.

There are craaaaazy hooks here: each tune is nearly instantly memorable. The best ones:

“Naked Star,” “The Ritualists,” “”Possession” and “Evil Inside” have a great series of riffs in them, “Evil Inside” in particular sounding like a radio-friendly Candlemass.

The singer sounds like a simpler David Coverdale, and it works here: there’s a stripped-down production and little detuning (they’re in D).

There’s cliched simple lyrics, a la early 80s metal– The Ritualist is as simple and straightforward as doom gets, really; like my old cassettes of Sabbath, listening to this makes me wanna learn the riffs –they are pretty cool and succinctly heavy– but not necessarily listen to this repeatedly: slow this one down even more, detune and gain-up the amps, and this would be an absolute monster: as it is, it sounds like a well-made demo.

Now, all we need’s a high-res, arty/ high-concept video as a cool juxtaposition to the retro-production here.

Happy Hallowe’en!