Fallen Christ
Abduction Ritual ("Forgotten Gem")

September 2008
Released: 1996, Listenable Records
Rating: 4.5/5
Reviewer: Luxi Lahtinen

Spawned by Satan, born of evil... Sometimes some underground metal albums worth checking out won´t ever get enough recognition - well, I mean not as much as they deserve anyway. I have one special band and album (the band´s first and last, unfortunately) in my mind that I wanted to pick from my CD shelf for further investigation. And "what´s that then?", some of you impatient people may ask.



Enter Fallen Christ from New York, USA. The band recorded 3 demos during 1992-94, and caught the attention of French Listenable Records eventually. In fact, it's no wonder at all why Laurent (the former owner of Listenable Records exclusively) got so interested in them in the first place. Think of sort of a crossbreeding of Canadian Blasphemy, ABOMINATIONS/ALTARS-era Morbid Angel musically - and be sure to add a fair dose of furious wickedness of Sadistic Intent, and you pretty much have these infamous bastards Fallen Christ lurking behind your back.



To me personally, ABDUCTION RITUAL with its 21 songs (+ a totally unnecessary 9:30 minute programmed outro) is one of those extreme death/satanic metal underground gems that seems to have been forgotten by most of the metal fans around the globe. Actually it´s kinda surprising that Fallen Christ´s ABDUCTION RITUAL never seemed to get all that attention it should have deserved. Maybe they were way too extreme sounding for some of our wussy minds and weak asses back then when this album was released? Oh yeah, fuckin´ evil and Satanic they were, but a damn talented bunch of metalheads they also were as far as their infernally brutal, destructive and very fast-paced death metal was concerned. Nearly each song on ABDUCTION RITUAL, lasts from 1 minute to 2 minutes, but believe me, that´s in fact a perfect length for their Satanic verses on this record. The band´s guitarist Ryan had surely learned a trick or two (probably even more) at Trey Azagthoth´s school, as well as Ronnie who spat black blood and once vomited innards of Christ behind his inverted microphone, knew how to imitate Mike (Browning) on ABOMINATIONS, David (Vincent) on ALTARS and Bay (Cortez) in Sadistic Intent. The other half of the band, Alex (Hernandez) pounded his drums of doom in Immolation after Fallen Christ whereas Sean Morelli was releasing demons and desecrating nuns in Dehumanized with his cursed 4-stringer after Fallen Christ called it quits. The root of all evil was already sown in Fallen Christ - and the first-born bastard child that was named as ABDUCTION RITUAL, unfortunately died way too soon in the attention of metalheads across the seas.



Let´s invoke the beast once again, after having been locked in a forgotten chamber for the past 12 years. Now join me in shouting: "Hail Satan! Hail Lucifer!! Hail 666!!!", and feel the Satanic majesty of ABDUCTION RITUAL...!!