Band:	Ripped To Shreds
Album:	Sanshi
Style:	Death metal
Release date:	September 27, 2024
A review by:	RaduP

01. Into The Court Of Yanluowang
02. Force Fed
03. 燒冥紙 (Sacrificial Fire)
04. 孽鏡臺 (Visions Of Sin, Mirror Of Darkness)
05. Feast Of The Deceased
06. 殭屍復活 (Horrendous Corpse Resurrection)
07. Living In Effigy
08. 冥婚 (Corpse Betrothal)
09. Cultivating Towards Ascension
10. Perverting The Funeral Rites, Stripping For The Dead

Straight-up old school death metal might have had a long course since it's revival in the 2000s, and getting excited about new albums is a rare event. A new Ripped To Shreds is such an event. Let's find out why!

First, let's dive a bit into Ripped To Shreds. The project originally started out as a solo project by one Andrew Lee back in 2016, and can safely be considered the guy's main project. However the Andrew Lee universe runs much deeper than that, and folks who pay attention to the main page may recognize some of his projects, some of them only having one proper album out, including but not limited to Houkago Grind Time, Andrew Lee's Heavy Metal Shrapnel, and Skullsmasher. Some of these are one man projects, some of these are proper bands, but surprisingly Andrew also lent his talents as a drummer to some pretty kvlt bands like Eosphoros and Kostnatění. In 2020, the band became a proper band, and ever since we've been getting a new Ripped To Shreds pretty consistently every two years.

While we're on the topic of lineups, there is a specific change for Sanshi in that it's the first Ripped To Shreds album to have a lineup with two guitarists, with Hemotoxin's Michael Chavez joining the band a couple of years ago. The Chavez / Lee duo of guitars is part of the reason why Sanshi sounds even fuller in sound. Having just seen Cannibal Corpse live with just one guitarist, I can confirm that as far as death metal is concerned, it does make a pretty big difference. That's the main difference as far as significant distinctions from the rest of the band's catalog goes, as for the most part Sanshi continues to do the Ripped To Shreds sound well.

And why the Ripped To Shreds sound works as well as it does is that it finds a pretty neat balance between adapting the old school death metal sound, and doing just enough to keep it sounding fresh and modernized. More than just playing an old sound well, even with some of its influences being quite obvious, listening to Ripped To Shreds never gives me a "retro rehash" feeling. Aside from the intensity and the proficiency in said old school sound, Ripped To Shreds also inject their sound both with some more intense and putrid deathgrind, and also with some thrashy riffing and some flashy melodeath, bordering on some guitar solos that sound almost taken out of an extreme power metal song. These two feel like two opposing forces within the death metal, and Ripped To Shreds ability to playfully use both of them in their sound is a winning formula.

So, to answer my "why" statement: Ripped To Shreds make full-throttle death metal that sounds fresh and vital. Especially now that the quartet formula unlocked an even fuller sound. That's why it's exciting whenever a new one comes around.