Altarage, a blackened death metal band, or chaotic death metal band, or kind of death-doom? Who knows? But that does not matter. Altarage did some ritualistic, dark stuff in the past and this was always a matter of taste. I like their unique style of riffing and songwriting in the past. ‘The Approaching Roar’ is their new full-length record, and I was quite curious about that.
The first song starts quite creepily. A dissonant acoustic guitar begins to play and then evolves instantly into a well-structured but chaotic song structure. It sounds like a paradox, but the guys of Altarage understand how it should be to mix mad riffs, evil vocals and creepy arrangements. This is the concept of the whole album – it may sounds boring, but it is not. Monotony is one solid tool in black metal which can create impressing atmospheres.
[metalwani_content_ad]
I do not want to describe any song as a separate thing itself, because this record itself is one long song in my opinion. It begins with Altarage-style songwriting and ends with it too. It is quite darker and more powerful than ever, though some „innovations“ would be nice – but that is just my personal opinion. Nevertheless, Altarage did a good job in composing the album!
Just some word due to the sound: it is good for this style of music. I think some bass frequencies are too dominant in some parts, but that could be a question of taste. Otherwise, I think the sound is appropriate in general and is able to build the atmosphere Altarage want to build.
If you like to drink a glass of red wine (or maybe more) in front of a fireplace while listening to some (good) weird, powerful and maybe chaotic black/death evil metal, you should give ‘The Approaching Roar’ by Altarage a chance. I like their style because it is straight and offbeat simultaneously. That is a paradox, but if you like extremer versions of death/black metal, you will understand what I mean. Seriously, give it a try!