Altar of Plagues
White Tomb

Vanished only after a few years of activity, and with only three albums left to posterity, these Irish gentlemen have undoubtedly left a significant mark on the path of extreme metal in recent years (see entry: post-black metal). Their swan song, “Teethed Glory and Injury”, was strange stuff, surely not for all tastes: the urge for experimentation took over the rest, pushing the sound of the Cork formation to flirt with industrial, noise, and electronic music, as well as obviously with post-rock (I'll tell you: I also heard a bit of math-rock). An experiment certainly successful, then, even if the band was not flawless in all circumstances, keeping up with its ambitions and courage (after all, the virus of dissolution was probably already inherent in those sessions).

So these were Altar of Plagues on their deathbed, in the year of our Lord 2013. But if we wanted to make a sudden leap backward and retrace their short journey from here, passing through the excellent “Mammal” (2011), where James Kelly's compositional genius had already had a chance to manifest itself prominently (a dark album, “Mammal”, sparse, terrible, but with a considered approach, born of a compositional balance and an extraordinary overall vision that allowed the three islanders to craft very long tracks that, at the same time, were concise, never dispersive or worse still, senseless), if we made a leap, as it was said, up to “White Tomb”, the first full-length released in 2009 under the banner of Profound Lore Records, we would find ourselves in front of an essentially different band.

Indeed. The Altar of Plagues of “White Tomb” were pure poetry.

Originally, the band (at the time a quartet) embraced a more classic sound, that of an impetuous and undoubtedly fierce black metal, however, illuminated by a surprising melodic taste (which runs through the work from beginning to end) and by post-metal openings of undoubted U.S. derivation (Isis, Pelican, etc.). Even if coming from old Europe, Altar of Plagues are in fact proponents of music that can be traced back to the U.S. Black Metal branch, that is, that handful of American bands that in the years zero dared to reinterpret (and relaunch) the work of the true Scandinavian glories that coined that language in the first half of the nineties (the majesty is that of Emperor, the obsessive and decadent poetics is typically Burzumian): a band of bands, then, which sees as forerunners Weakling and subsequently, as main exponents, names like Xasthur and Leviathan (regarding the depressive counterpart) and Agalloch and Wolves in the Throne Room (when it comes to contaminations derived from post-rock).

And precisely with the latter, Altar of Plagues have more than one aspect in common: the love for long compositions, for expansive and exciting instrumental passages, for a layered sound, for the desire and ability to transfer emotions into majestic, atrocious, beautiful music. Majestic, atrocious, beautiful like Nature, we could say, Mother and executioner at the same time: like the American wolves (who in the same year, 2009, were already reaching their third album, and were already well-versed), the band of James Kelly also had a strong interest in environmental themes, and indeed “White Tomb” was driven by an apocalyptic concept: we could define it as the musical chronicle of the end of our planet (a theme already hinted at by looking at that metallic structure stranded in a desolate landscape that could just as easily represent the calm before the storm, like the gloomy scenario that would follow). Not only, therefore, the cruel expression of an essentially pessimistic worldview, translated into chaotic and distressing music that rises to dystopia, metaphor of a system on the brink of collapse: but also a warning aimed at a change of cultural, economic, social order.

In short:

EARTH

I – As a Womb (12:03)

II – As a Fornace (15:01)

THROUGH THE COLLAPSE

III – Watchers Restrained (9:48)

IV – Gentian Truth (13:10)

Namely: the fury of the elements, the chaos, the collapse, the end.

This is the path that the work, divided into four long chapters, offers us over its approximately fifty-minute duration: a journey in pain and awareness, led by competent musicians and built on three main axes: speed, dynamism, melody; a path of material and spiritual disintegration that, from a purely musical point of view, develops over the following succession of phases: raging black metal, arpeggiated breaks and subsequent post-rock detonations, depressive injections, funeral doom & drone (music), poignant melody (finally Agalloch!) amidst catharsis, elegy, and end-of-the-world miasma.

In the catastrophic black of “White Tomb” there is everything that only black metal itself can describe: fury, suffering, despair. But there is also the entire range of sensations provided by a highly emotional genre such as post-rock: melancholy, romanticism, and yet again epicity and anger. The two guitars love to intertwine and chase each other, generating a swirl of emotions nonstop; the drums are unafraid to race at the speed of light, although it proves capable of sustaining more articulated progressions (and the beauty is that the rhythmic base is so in tune with the sound flow that rarely does the elegant drumming of the excellent S.MacAnri draw attention to itself). Kelly’s voice is a howl that can only convey despair; evocative is the contribution of a second voice, an acute scream that moves in even higher pitches, used in the album's most poignant passages. Seeking to open a parenthesis on Jeremia Spillane (the other guitarist, the true melodic talent of Altars of Plagues and continuous generator of fluid harmonies, perfectly complementing Kelly’s more dissonant and noise approach), certainly, his contribution must have had an impact on this release, since already from the subsequent “Mammal” (in which only Kelly and bassist Dave Condon of the original lineup will survive, here at his best performance), his absence will be felt, as if Altar of Plagues then continued their journey marked by a progressive compression of sounds, ideas, and writing, until they reached the perverse synthesis of the four or five-minute tracks present in “Teethed Glory and Injury”.

But at the time of “White Tomb” Altar of Plagues were pure poetry. And if it, in my opinion, does not deserve full marks (here and there, in fact, it offers the ear drum some too long passages or not always memorable segments, especially in its second half; on a broader scale, we could also say that the debt owed to the masters Wolves in the Throne Room is still too great), taken on its own “White Tomb” is a masterpiece, and in the very short career of this extraordinary band, it remains undoubtedly the album of the heart, the most passionate, immediate, and overflowing with true emotions.

Indispensable for anyone who follows/loves third-millennium black metal.