Lord Dying-Poisoned Altars
Review by Jeffery McNulty
This right here is why Lord Dying is one of my favorite bands around! After months of their last record being glued to my turntable they went and gave us another slab of awesomeness, Poisoned Altars. On first listen I was like WTF? This sounds weird. Then I remembered I had Beats Audio on my phone and I took that crap off (turn that crap off you guys) and immediately I heard what the mastering engineer was trying to do.
Then I started worrying that Lord Dying might be suffering from sophomore fever… until the end of the second song. My ears perked up, this is what I was waiting for: unrelenting riffs galore. Repeated spins have confirmed what I’ve known all along. Lord Dying is one of the great metal acts hailing from the Northwest, the latest in a long line of skull crushers. I can tell you this is going to be on repeat for some time at my house.
Poisoned Altars is one of the few records I’ve heard lately that actually gets better toward the end. It lights a fire immediately; the eponymous opening track just rips into your face. Then, at the end of ‘The Clearing at the End of The Path’ things slow down slightly and there was room for my head to bang. By the time ‘A Wound Outside of Time’ is done the riffs had completely pulled me in. Song #6, ‘Suckling at the Teat of a She-Beast’ is my favorite though; there is something about it that hits me just right.
Now that I’ve really put some time into this album I can honestly say the vocals, and the lyrics, are incredible. They are tough without being so distorted that you can’t understand what Erik is saying. And they won’t be reviewed on No Clean Vocals because all of a sudden there is an epic set of verses on ‘An Open Sore’ sung by Aaron from Red Fang. Sung well I might add.
This is not to downplay the rest of the band. Everyone is on point as usual. The production, by Toxic Holocaust’s Joel Grind (Black Tusk) is brutal and not smooth in any way, just pure aggression from top to bottom. I cannot wait to hear Poisoned Altars on vinyl and if they have them I will be sure to pick one up when I go see them this Saturday the 24th at the Highline.
Great Falls will be opening up (playing songs off their new record!) along with Jon, from Sandrider’s new metal band DemonHammer (I caught their first show at Chop Suey, they rip hilariously) and the ever-heavy Curse of the North. See you all there!
