Black Altar

Black Altar doesn´t do anything new, and doesn´t add anything to the genre with their debut album. But they still kick ass at times.

After a boring intro and a fierce, but average opening track, The Accuser
comes crawling out. Good riffs that drives the track forward and the album climbes on the rating ladder. Onto The Black Surface sets it a little back again, because it lacks the fierceness and harshness. Raw vocal lines, though. Then, The Revelation of Scourge, pounds through and knockes over whatever light source in it´s wake. Pure fierce and fucking black metal. The last half of the album is unfortuanetly a little weaker.

Standard black metal, but with a raw atmosphere and fierce drumming. A sense of Darkthrone and mid-Immortal. Very norwegian in the sound and riffing. Deathlike drums and strong vocals lifts this work out of the thousands of similar bands. Still I miss a little identity. But hell, The Revelation of Scourge is a fucking killer.

All in all, this is not a bad release.
There are many catchy riffs and haunting shrieks - indubitably nice atmosphere.
Orthodox Black/Death Metal with some analogies to new Behemoth (with leaping short riffing and blast beats), even some Dark Funeral and other typical Swedish sounds (they even remind me on Tsjuder at one point or another), but in many ways better. At least in my opinion.
On some points There are also diverse slow-downs which don't really contribute much to the whole concept.
But the fact is that this was all heard before and you'll surely put this release on the side after a couple of throughout listenings.
But still, being an uncompromising and "back to the roots" band today is a brave thing to do, so I'll give them some credit and hand them 80 points - a fair price. =)