Send "Altar of Plagues " Ringtones to your Cell 
| Popmatters |
 Following the career arcs of so many metal bands at the same time, things can get predictable to the point where you’re able to anticipate well in advance where some bands are taking their music. Some more gifted bands knock you off your chair by advancing their music farther than anyone could have expected, but for the most part, the musical growth is subtle enough to sound like it was what we had been expecting all along. Thing is, it’s no fun thinking you’ve got a band sussed. It’s a lot more fun to be challenged by a brash young band that decides to buck trends and approach their art in ways we couldn’t have foreseen.When that does happen, however, when a burgeoning young talent comes along and virtually tosses a rather effective musical formula out the window in favor of something a lot less friendly to the ears, one’s initial reaction is often that of complete befuddlement. Take Irish black-metal band Altar of Plagues, for instance. The band’s 2008 self-released Sol EP was a mildly intriguing blend of atmospheric black-metal and the much more expansive sounds of the “post-metal” fad led by the likes of Isis. A year later, the debut full-length White Tomb was a revelation. Not only did the record offer a much more seamless combination of the two differing styles of extreme music, but a sly hint of lush, shoegaze-inspired melodies crept into the music as well, which wound up complementing the nature-themed lyrics by vocalist/multi-instrumentalist James Kelly. White Tomb proved to be a rarity, an album that garnered much critical praise yet at the same time was also embraced by many stingy black-metal fans as well. Here’s where the pomposity of the music critic completely backfires. You’d think the follow-up would expand on the idea even more, whether placing more emphasis on the band’s growing melodic strengths or blurring the line between metals black and post even more. You’d think. Instead, Mammal proves to be a significant regression by the Cork, Ireland trio. It’s harsh; it’s menacing; it’s bleak; it is one miserable, death-obsessed, vicious piece of work, comprised of four unforgiving tracks over the span of 52 minutes that plumb the darkest depths of both extreme metal and Kelly’s own tormented psyche....full text |
| Angrymetalguy |
| I respect when a band creates something unique, challenging and hard for the listener to initially absorb. However, I only respect it when there’s a real payoff once the listener DOES absorb it. I think most readers can recall some album in their past that proved difficult to grasp but all of a sudden, you got it and the album opened up and became great. That’s the root of the problem with Mammal, the new Altar of Plagues platter. An avant garde post-black metal band coming out of Ireland of all places, Altar of Plagues released a very impressive debut with White Tomb back in 2009. Follow up EP Tides was good but nowhere near as impactful. Now their second full length fails to live up to the enormous potential heard on their debut. Is that potential in danger of going up in post-smoke? Read on metal warriors, read on. Upfront, I should be clear that Altar of Plagues was never an easy band to get into. They write very minimalist, wide open post-black metal with a very empty, lonely, diffuse sound. I know it will make a lot of people cringe but I would compare them to stripped down Agalloch mixed with Wolves in the Throne Room and Tool (yes, I said Tool). On Mammal they take their core style and push it further outward into the realms of drone and shoegaze. Opening track “Neptune is Dead” clocks in at a whopping 18:44 minutes and it’s a sparse, empty journey much of the way. Although it starts with blast beats, discordant riffing and Dave Condon’s blackish shouts (that sound as if he is screaming from far off in the vastness), things quickly shift into minimalist, spacey, vaguely black metalish riffing that goes for extreme repetition and drone. Long stretches of the song have very little going on at all and sometimes it works, sometimes it’s just seems like nothing going on. That said, the song suceeds in its own meander-metal way (especially the Agalloch-like riffing at 8:15). “Feathers and Bones” although more aggressive at times, ultimately feels bland over the course of its nearly twelve minutes and much shoegazery doth ensue (the paucity of ideas within doesn’t justify such a drawn out length). “When the Sun Drowns in the Ocean” is a long, experimental track with no vocals save those provided by weeping, sobbing and at times chanting women....full text |
| Heavymetal |
| Nominally at least, Ireland’s Altar Of Plagues is a black metal band, but if you’re expecting their second full length Mammal to be nothing but a barrage of blasts, ice-cold riffs and adolescent hymns to Satan, you probably need to move on as it’s much more complicated than that. True, the trio do offer more than their fair share of battering ram brutality, with the high speed visceral thrashing of opener “Neptune Is Dead” being every bit as unnerving and unrelenting as anything spewed out by the likes of Darkthrone and Mayhem in the early nineties, but such musical mania is only part of the story. Mammal features just four tracks, but the aforementioned opener runs to nearly twenty minutes, while both “Feather And Bone” and “All Life Converges To Some Center” both comfortably exceed ten minutes each, creating masses of room for experimentation and each song represents its own harrowing journey through the darkest swamps of extreme metal – and indeed, post-metal. For every blast beat, there is an equally intense yet melodic musical passage which taps into the same hypnotic pulse as Isis or Negura Bunget, while the vocals of James Kelly are brimming with so much malevolent venom and sinister threat as to be genuinely unsettling. Perhaps though, it’s the album’s shortest track “When The Sun Drowns In The Ocean” that best captures Altar Of Plague’s dynamic diversity. Still clocking in at well over eight minutes, the track is a loosely-formed ambient soundscape featuring an audio rendition of a traditional Irish keening or lament which was sung over deceased corpse until the start of the 20th century. It’s difficult and challenging to listen to, but perfectly encapsulates the way in which Mammal transcends mere music and becomes almost primal. Depending on your viewpoint, this record is either a monumental landmark in the development of modern extreme metal or a self-indulgent exercise in pseudo-intellect. Not everyone will get it, and quite frankly, not everyone is meant to. What’s certain is that Mammal is one of the most intelligent and compelling extreme releases of the year so far....full text |
Altar of Plagues lyrics
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