25th September 2026
Christopher Nosnibor
Two years on from their debut, Dial in the Ghost, London noisemongers Ritual Error are cack with an album which they threaten ‘takes the band in a meaner, more angular, direction’, defined by ‘Abrasive bass, shrill guitars, frantic and precise drumming, everything sounds like it’s gonna fall apart. And for the sickos: howled lyrics about sexual alien abductions, an island state obsessed with 12-foot immigrants, and booking agents who turn themselves into tattoos to please their clients. Plus, a shit tonne of JG Ballard references!’
As a huge Ballard fan myself, this only adds to the appeal. The thing that’s struck me about his writing in recent years – particularly his later works – is that it’s only grown in relevance. The rise of the flag shaggers last year – ‘Operation Raise the Colours’ as the racist shitheads behind festooning every lamppost with national flags branded it – compelled me to revisit Ballard’s final novel Kingdom Come. Published in 2006 – yes, twenty years ago – it’s study of rising fascism in the context of rampant consumerism and materialistic boredom felt like reading news reportage as much as a novel.
It’s an inescapable fact that we live in the weirdest, scariest, and darkest of times, and I’ve suggested before that the making of noise is perhaps one of the last rational methods of dealing with the world as it now is, and Ritual Error seem to fully embrace this idea on Terminal with Benefits.
The jerky, jolty, lurchy ‘songs’ are interspersed with brief interludes, untitled passages mere seconds in duration, plus the five-minute parenthetical ‘instrumental’ which sits in the middle of the album. Yes, Terminal with Benefits embraces all of the difficult bends in the roads, the awkwardness and the resistance. I begin to wonder if there are even any benefits to the terminal status of our societal decline.
‘Tapeworm’ is a gnarly mess of distortion and anguish, and lunges into Shellac territory in no time. Great! But also ‘woah!’ This is some gnarly, heavy shit, an abrasive blast of discord. ‘Hung Up On a Clown’ is a lurching, psychotic blast of disorientated confusion, staggering hither and thither and calling to mind Leeds’ finest, Blacklisters.
Noise rock has been around for a while now, but you know you’re hearing the best of it when it makes your stomach lurch and you feel a bit queasy and vaguely dizzy, and perhaps even a bit stressed and a sense of bewilderment closes in from different angles. With the looping guitar parts and surrounding racket, the sense of overwhelm and anxiety arrives early while listening to Terminal with Benefits.
‘Domestic Pattern’ is a truly jolting assault which stars a bit juddery, then goes totally askew. And it only gets messier. And messy is the word. This is one fucked-up shit moras of noise, with slanted skewed guitars – not metallic or distorted, but clean and trebly.
‘Family Plot’ is Shellac amped up to the point of queasiness, and reminiscent of a slew of gnarly 90s acts, and the swaggering swing of ‘(Instrumental)’ (which isn’t an instrumental at all) hits hard. The same is true of this album as a whole, a work of noise rock par excellence.
AA
