American Black Metal outfit Altars aren’t afraid to draw influences from unorthodox sources. In a recent interview with Regress Magazine, they cited noise legend Prurient as a major source of inspiration; and it shows. A three piece, consisting of J. Hartings on drums, J. Dorsey on vocals and guitar, and M. Reis crafting a wall of punishing noise, Altars have an expansiveness to their sound that evokes the industrial clamor of an abandoned factory grinding to a halt. Raw, but not muddy. Noisey, but not amelodic, Altars is one of the finest realizations of blackened noise on the scene.
Following the success of their epic split with Halla, Altars Live on Pure Hate weighs in at five tracks. The introduction set’s the stage to this record. A noisy, crunchy industrial piece that swells to violent extremes by it’s midpoint. The sound of steel on steel, the drone of a distant motor, sparse percussion that builds under layers of noise. Clearly drawing inspiration from the harsh noise and power electronics that Reis cites as an influence, it posits a different strand of black metal. Born not in the dark forests of the north, but of the hellscape of modern industry. As guitar kicks in we hit the first real track on this album, “The Slain God”. The noise transitions clearly from the intro here, but with a simple, crystal clear riff driving this along we’ve clearly entered black metal territory. After chugging along for a minute, all hell breaks loose as the vocals drop in. Distorted and distant, they offer a stark contrast to the clean guitar.
As a whorl of shattered steel and crushing feedback churn in the background the tempo picks up, leading directly into “The Great Ram”. Feedback is contrasted with electronic noise, overlapping with the vocal and brutal drumming before syncing up in a blast of noise. This track is pure evil; the noise dominating the rest of the instruments. A black tide threatening to swallow the entire track, the guitar pierces through,a sludgy lead that slows the track down to a funeral march.
The next song, “A Wounded Bird”, is the most straightforward black metal song on this album. Ildjarn-esque guitar and drum pound relentlessly against a wall of feedback. Vocals hear drop down into a death metal growl at points, recalling some of Altars earlier works. After two minutes of raw black metal everything simply drops out, distant noise coming to dominate the rest of the track. Sparsely strummed bass floats over an empty industrial landscape for the rest of this track providing an almost beautiful contrast to the rawness of the earlier.
The final track on this record is going to divide audiences. Eschewing the harsh vocals and buzzsaw electric guitars, we instead get clean vocals and acoustics. This is a cover of the Swan’s classic, “God Damn the Sun” and it hits like a freight train. Swan’s influence on American noise rock and black metal cannot be denied; one need only listen to the live album Public Castration is a Good Idea to see just how far into dark territory these legends could take it. Altars cover does the original justice; it’s plaintive, mournful, hateful, and yet under it all, beautiful. While some may question putting an acoustic song at the end of a punishing blackened noise record, it fits here, showing just how far their influences go.
While many critics consider black metal a genre that’s collapsing in on itself, Live on Pure Hate is a strong statement to the depth and expansiveness of the American black metal scene. Live on Pure Hate is currently available via King of the Monsters Records and How Much Art Can You Take. Pick this one up, Altars are well on their way to becoming a canonical piece of the black metal underground.
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