ALTAR OF PLAGUES — Mammal (review)

ALTAR OF PLAGUES — Mammal album cover Album · 2011 · Atmospheric Black Metal Buy this album from MMA partners
3.5/5 ·
Phonebook Eater
7/10

“Mammal” is an innovative, brave, experimental, and extremely gloomy piece of music.

Altar of Plagues have been a pretty obscure Atmospheric Black Metal band until the release “Mammal” came out, and people started knotting heads in pleasure, or more accurately, started paying attention, very closely, to the music. This latest release might not be the most groundbreaking album of Black Metal, but it certainly is innovative, brave, experimental, and finally, extremely dim.

These musicians aren’t exactly experienced, as a matter of fact there are pretty new to the music scene, coming from a place where isolation among musicians is frequent, Ireland. They are obviously a new band, and its great to hear that. But what is also obvious are the influences from old, famous Atmospheric Black Metal bands such as Burzum, but also from Blackgaze acts that have been getting very popular over the last few years. Altar Of Plagues are a band that can create atmosphere like only a few BM bands can: it can be utterly grim, at times even minimalistic, but then they would explode into a gloomy hook, featuring hammering drums, painful, emotional shrieking vocals, and a surprisingly well produced sound. Post-Rock influences are noticeable in more than a few spots, using interesting samples, some synthesizers to make some ambience, and unusual instrumentation in the eerier moments.

As I mentioned, “Mammal” is an extremely dreary, visceral, dark album, with tons of themes such as death and helplessness echoing like crazy all over the place. It would have been even more effective, though, if the four long tracks were more consistent and somewhat memorable: nothing can be said however about the 18 minute opener “Neptune Is Dead”, the most complete, emotional, brutal, but also most beautiful track, with multiple moods that constantly morph, always with the nastiest attitude. “Feather And Bone” and “All Life Converges To Some Center” have certainly their moments but are at some times inconsistent and I just am not crazy about them in some points, despite being good songs. But the third track, “When The Sun Drowns Into The Ocean”, is an impressive piece of art, a reminiscent, instrumental, eight minute post-rock track that is tense as well and extremely experimental, other than having a quite unusual flow.

“Mammal” is a really enjoyable LP that ought to bring Altar Of Plagues onto a whole new level. Another gem of metal music in 2011, I know that I’ll be looking forward to what this band does next and what they just did, at the end of the year when listing the top metal albums.
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