BLASPHEMY — Blood Upon the Altar (review)

BLASPHEMY — Blood Upon the Altar album cover Promos, fans club and other releases (no bootlegs) · 1989 · War Metal Buy this album from MMA partners
3.5/5 ·
siLLy puPPy
In the 80s when the Satanic bowels of hell were giving birth to deformed fetuses only partially infused with slimy maggoty life, they were endowed with a spark of pure evil which gave them the impetus to create massive quantities of musical mayhem in the name of hate of religion, death, pain and misanthropy. Such creatures became the early nascent forms of black metal such as Celtic Frost, early Bathory and Mayhem. But some were irradiated by melted down nuclear reactors and Satanic sludge that mutated them into maniacal creatures so vile and repugnant that they took pure musical aggression where it had never gone before.

True musical bleakness was born in the fire pits of Vancouver, BC with the help of BLASPHEMY which on their first demo / EP release BLOOD UPON THE ALTER is the first fully developed example of war metal, which is a highly aggressive and chaotic type of metal that sounds a lot like death metal in its musical hostility but incorporates the anti Christian philosophies and misanthropic vile of what black metal would become famous for. On this release we hear a typified war metal sound solidly unleashing pure hostility rather than atmosphere much in the same as early black turned thrash bands like Sepultura or Sarcófago. There is a hardcore crust punk brevity to the tracks with occasional high pitched guitar solos.

Unlike most black metal from the second wave onwards that developed a certain template for the sub genre, war metal does not engage in a trebly lo-fi veneer with lightning fast tremolo picking but rather murky, muddy bleakness with emphasis on the bass with tortured vocals more akin to death than the shrieks more familiar with black. While many a black metal band lays the Satanic imagery and lyrics on a bit thick, war metal bands like BLASPHEMY are known for the outrageous and unrelenting over-the-top approach to their darkness. If you like the loudest, crudest and most obnoxious music ever to assault the ear drums then all roads lead back to BLASHPHEMY and their debut release BLOOD UPON THE ALTER, which boldly adopts the imagery and lyrics of Slayer, Mayhem, Possessed, Bathory and others and injects a healthy dose of Satanic steroids to conjure up one massive mess of sonic assault. Check em out if you dare!
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