Altarage threat strikes again.
The masked trio from Spain offers us a fourth album, named Succumb.
Whether the members’ identity is still unknown, due to their dark outfit, their sound is quickly recognizable. A dissonant and aggressive mass, that let no rest to the listener, while crushing them under the massive blast supported by howlings. It is with Negative Arrival that the storm of rage comes to life. Jerky and oppressive, the wave of blackness falls upon us without mercy, and its one and only hint of life those cavernous screams. Magno Evento continues into this raw and black way, offering violent melodies, intense ranting and above all a brutal basis, like the heavy and haunting Maneuvre. Ice-cold vocals echoes to this suffocating rhythmic, then the long and crawling Foregone comes next. The song is martial, and invokes a frightening and tearing slowness, that morphs into a staunch explosion, before coming back to an industrial coldness and a scary automatism.
Drainage Mechanism reconnects with this visceral rage that lives in the musicians thanks to tearing leads that fly above a chaotic rhythmic, then Watcher Witness offers us again an unhealthy but attractive groove. RIffs are as hypnotic as disturbing, but some occult leads slip inside this dark melting. Fair Warning barely lets us time to breathe, between mysticism and dissonance, then some suffocating noises drop us on Lavath, a very thick but still catchy composition. The song suddenly slows down to offer a fix of dark and disturbing jerks at the same time. We go back to greasy Sludge influences for Forja, a slow and massive song, then the acceleration becomes obvious before this hooking final part, and the strangely melodic introduction on Inwards. But melodies quickly handle this inhuman rage and this fury, to offer a new wave of pure violence with a raw and dirty sound under an unstoppable blast. Vour Concession continues into this slithering and organised chaos developed by shadows that only slows down to bog us down into their nets before Devorador de Mundos, the long final song. More than twenty minutes of larsens, noises and slow riffs that flirt with a black Drone, dropping drums after several minutes to focus on the most impure auditive dirt while slowly increasing before leaving us into the void.
Altarage’s music is not for everyone. Whether the previous records set the basis of a dark and chaotic style up, Succumb develops this violent oppression and this unhealthy dirt to reach a mesmerizing climax.
95/100