Ritual Device

I'm going through a phase at the moment of trying to seek out bands that nobody knows or cares about anymore. Generally, a bunch of stuff that I have been investigating is by bands that were active in the late 80s or early 90s. I genuinely feel that the late 80s and early 90s was the most inventive time for music generally, so even second and third tier bands from then sound more interestnig than a lot of modern bands. I feel that I'm more excited by unearthing stuff that is long forgotten and pretty much ignored than trying to get into whatever the latest hardcore buzz band is. But I think there's also a part of this that is fun because it's possible to find some records for sale that are really cheap and easy to buy.

Back at the start of the 1990s, Redemption Records put out some great records. Back when I was getting into straight edge hardcore it felt like everybody had the same records in their collection, and without doubt everyone had three 7"s put out by Redemption Records - the Four Walls Falling 'Burn It / Happy Face' 7", Ressurection 'Culture' 7", and Encounter 'Lost' 7". But the rest of the label's output is a little less well known. Recently I stumbled across an LP by a band called Ritual Device titled 'Henge' and the Redemption logo on the back made me curious. I checked this out online and then decided to buy it.

As far as I can tell, all the vinyl copies were on this clear orange colour.

Turns out that around 1993, this band were predicted to be huge. Apparently the CD version of this sold over 10,000 copies, and the singer of The Offspring can be seen wearing a Ritual Device shirt in one of their videos. I can see why this was popular back then. Turns out that they came from Omaha, Nebraska which is right in the middle of America (i.e. miles from anywhere) and they broke up pretty much at the peak of their popularity as their singer decided to move to San Francisco.

,p>To me this sounds like kind of noisy rock that comes in somewhere between Tad and The Jesus Lizard. And in 2026, this sounds kinda frsh and interesting.