Ritual
, the sixth studio long-player from the Hollywood-based goth-metal troupe, opens appropriately with an evocative soundscape filled with thunderclaps, ghostly incantations, air raid sirens, and tribal drumming, portending an explosive, arena-sized doom anthem. Follow-up "Oh Lord" is indeed combustible, but it's hardly the soaring, overwrought
Evanescence
-fest that the intro would suggest. Instead, the band delivers a blues-blasted, midtempo gospel banger -- with style and attitude to spare -- that proves once again that
Maria Brink
possesses one of the most powerful and compelling voices, male or female, in the modern rock genre. Follow-up "Black Wedding" pairs
Brink
with the metal god himself,
Judas Priest
's
Rob Halford
, and the two lay waste to a fun, propulsive, and campy duet that takes
Billy Idol
's "White Wedding" through the looking glass and dresses it up in BDSM gear. An icy and operatic reading of
Phil Collins
' "In the Air Tonight" -- much truer to the source material than
Nonpoint
's dudebro MMA version -- plays to the band's penchant for melodrama, as does the bold and dark, though ultimately hope-driven closer "Lay Down Your Gun." Sonic and emotional opulence has always come naturally to
In This Moment
, and
doesn't disappoint, as it struts about in the usual dark finery. However, it's also the band's leanest set of material to date -- most of the material was composed with their live show in mind -- and its moody charms are administered with both muscle and grace. ~ James Christopher Monger