Surprisingly born under San Diego's sun, Ascended Dead are nevertheless as ugly as it can be: not by design nor by trying their best to sound that way, but just because that foul stench they ooze from every pore is their true nature. Yes, their founding members and some of their current members have played or are still playing in other bands, but none of this really matters, as their mainman JR stresses that "Everything we've attained was built from the ground up, and we’d like to maintain as much of a stand-alone legacy as we can." Yes, they’ve had their fair share of struggles and obstacles to overcome - something well-documented in the booklet of last year’s self-released Ritus Mortuus compilation - but this somehow only strengthened their determination and musical idiosyncrasy.