In The Dark Hymns, Dark Rites shape their music with the highest proficiency in unrelenting-intensity phrasal-riff death metal that varies in texture and pauses inertia long enough to ram a militant and uncompromising aesthetic down the throats of their listeners. Rippling textures of chords thrust home like a battlefield execution form the raw skin from which this band twist phrases that contort, transform and rediscover their origins as they mutate over the course of a song. The gavel-beat of fuzz-blasted vocals pulses alongside a loping bass and rigidly sliding speeding guitar tremolo, forming a seething mass of impenetrable diatribe which alights above the head of a listener like a killing mood.