A bedroom instrumental progressive blackened death metal band from Washington D.C., Shroud Ritual may seem like a handful with such an overwhelmingly wordy description. However, encapsulated within 'Five Suns' is a smooth and well-rounded product that contributes to the variation found in many progressive passages and compliments the sensibilities of fans of Immortal and Animals as Leaders alike while venturing into the groovy pedigree of heavy metal's progenitors and rock outliers in subtler introspective measures.

Shroud Ritual's mischievous and adroit tour de force pangs of Akercocke and Behemoth. Sweeping through great scales in “Lightless”, this sort of multifaceted journey brings enough of that heavy death metal chugging edge and black metal screech to subvert even the bounciest moments with a hurried scramble before darting down prog's perplexing passageways. A tilted path of unusual time signatures and wonky guitars pulls you further into this distorted fun house mirror world where calming atmosphere dissipates, despite hints of flowery progressive metal along the lines of Canvas Solaris or Scale the Summit and the stringed crooning popularized by the likes of Petrucci, Vai, and Satriani. 

Patrick H. creates a labyrinthine network of grim imagery while maintaining the adventurous ambition necessary to honor the “Ancestral”. Voluminous guitar riffs seize fluid progressions and, through a wander from chug city, travels into the twisted and disorienting wilderness where a breath of atmosphere calls forth to outfits of leather-clad shredders as a satisfying blasting apex draws sheer cliffs and meandering fjords into an outstretched hand of malice. Where many a cold and cascading black metal song may strip its atmosphere down to frightfully empty remains, “Ancestral” grows and expands its amorphous approach into an assertion of allegiance to the darker side of this genre designation as it demonstrates the breadth of this band's aspirations.

Reaching beyond dark forests, “Celestial Dome” is initially wrapped in an Akercocke cloak of ruthlessness, intermixed with jazz while another leg of this ethereal album's journey finds itself in the quivering embrace of an echoing synth reminiscent of Led Zeppelin's “No Quarter”. A twirl of harmonious strings steps out into an airy meadow, slicked by a dewy layer of bass, and captivatingly curls into a monstrous fist of stone, malforming the main riff as it ascends to its percussive plateau, a destination long removed from its “Verdant” origin. This betrayal of the earlier calm finds its place in slightly sinister tones yet remains about as casually unsettling as the closing of Pelican's “Taraxis”. The journey completed, Shroud Ritual's after party turns into too quick a flow of ale, but tomorrow's hangover is not leaving this next day lost to progress.

Swinging by their tails like dead cats being tenderized in preparation for a succulent Chinese meal, “Sleep & Oblivion” whips its riffs in keen death metal fashion and manages to build a plethora of compelling and fluid structures. An energetic and restless guitar spits at a small piano before getting beaten into shape by some punishing percussion. Training the tempo, this twisted theater culminates in a simultaneously sappy and snappy harmony. Feline spines split and furry nunchucks send innards flying into an opaque abstraction of the blissfully baroque, beating beautiful notes into improvised ventricles. Throughout this song is the culmination of Patrick H.'s effort in arranging guitars to perfectly provide lyrical licks throughout their already meaty riffs and such an accomplishment is so quickly consumed and digested that it easily keeps you coming back for more helpings, no matter how horrible a punishment the porcelain is due to receive.

Throughout this meaty forty-five minutes of unique transitions and approaches, Patrick H. takes Shroud Ritual into an expansive exploration of the universality of heavy metal and its abundant subsets. While there are such clear and concise passages that easily exhibit individual agency, I would be remiss if I did not point out one moment in this album that veers very closely to a preexisting structure built by Devildriver in 'The Fury of Our Maker's Hand'. In the second minute of the closing song, “The Tangled Web” bleeds a black metal blast into an approach very similar to the breakdown of Devildriver's “Just Run”. This moment is taken in the opposite direction however, as it ups the ante of this transition with a more aggressive push into that initial riff. Where many moments throughout 'Five Suns' amble down similar paths to some of the best known albums in the style, this small moment of parallel thinking nearly fills each shoe-print identically, groove and all. Even so, the main mollification of this small concern is in considering just how many gaps are bridged throughout this astonishingly adept album and its incredible closer. Throughout this piece, Spanish sounding acoustic meets the unusual clash of time signatures in jazz, embraces an Animals as Leaders bit of djent, taps to the tapestry of F.C.P.R.E.M.I.X., and builds that loosey-goosey Tool tambour of vibrating bass rumble throughout a nasty solo. These moments are just a taste of an apt and artful binding that amorously adjoins all aspects. Clearly the above moment was a reference or a parallel piece for the content of this collection shows a very conscious and forthright effort unlikely to stumble into such a trap where it could instead pay its homage honestly to many members of metal's massive milieu.

Though an initial glance at this bedroom band's designation may bring some apprehension, Patrick H. has found a great balance of heavy and light, reverential and unique, and achieved a numinous nature to compliment his Shroud Ritual. No moment in this album leaves a listener out in the cold too long. Through this engaging enterprise comes the satisfaction of meeting musical heritage in “Ancestral”, traversing enormous expanse in “Celestial Dome”, accomplishing a distant goal in “Verdant”, and knitting together worlds of sound, shrinking it into a stream of consciousness in “The Tangled Web”. Shroud Ritual knows no bounds between 'Five Suns' and throws down a new gauntlet to honorably challenge the quality and ambitions of abstract approaches.