Pagan Altar
The Time Lord

Late seventies, specifically 1978; the English Terry and Alan Jones, father and son respectively, record the first material of Pagan Altar. No one would have the chance to listen to these five tracks until 2004, when the EP would be issued as a CD; in fact, the only album by Pagan Altar produced and released during the "New Wave of British Heavy Metal" (NWOBHM) is the 1982 demo "Judgement of the dead", which, by the way, reprises some tracks that appeared in the '78 EP. The thirty minutes of The Time Lord are what best encapsulate the soul of this little-known band close to traditional doom metal: thanks to the sparse production, free from any useless technical virtuosity or baroque overdubs, these tracks shine in all their splendor, delivering to the listener macabre and dark atmospheres, yet fascinating, like when reading a book about the unknown; deep and immersive rhythms as engaging as they are involving, a true Pagan Altar that encloses ancient treasures in a new guise, that of rock, typical of the twentieth century. The EP opens with the streetwise "Highway Cavalier", a good heavy track, entertaining yet pointless for understanding the soul of the band - to make it clear, the classic highway anthem that has struck the history of rock from Highway Star onwards - and with the more substantial title track, but it is with the final triptych that we face great moments that every music lover should (re)discover.

"Galleries of dead are smiling, candlelight is shining, Judgement of the dead."

This is how the theatrical Judgement of the dead opens; the Sabbathian derivation of the whole is very clear - think of the clean and melodic guitar phrasings, very close to medieval Sabbath in Solitude - as much as, at the same time, the ability to distance itself from the consolidated formula of granitic power chords, composing a dark sound liturgy, as musically layered as it is deep from a lyrical point of view. A piece that, behind the haze of reverberations, announces a humble cry of revenge, a catharsis, an act of disdain in front of the horrors and malice that envelop the modern world; a musical revolt that chooses, as a symbol to oppose all this, a ruthless jury composed of skeletons, now shiny and unstoppable as finally, in the dreams of Pagan Altar and those who listen to them, the time of judgment has come:

"Politicians standing in line, generals following behind, chained to the dock with the leaders of religion, heads bowed low awaiting the decision."

With the subsequent Black Mass, Pagan Altar's musical discourse continues: with this anthemic piece, the focus is not on the distortion of the guitars but on the joint work of strings, drums, and voice - a splendid nasal voice, indigestible to many (I can understand the reasons), which might remind one of Mark Shelton from Manilla Road. It's time to headbang, to fly away from the miseries of the present, towards the dark idols of our pagan altar: here the English shout it to us with their unforgettable chorus, tearing us away from the age of plasma screens and liquid men: this is the age, the age of Satan, now that the twilight is done, now that Satan has come.

The final Reincarnation elegantly concludes this quick yet visceral exploration of dark worlds - lost in a limbo between dream and horror - combining, one might say, both the religious cadence of Judgement and the angry impetus of the Black Mass we have just mentioned.

It seems that many, faced with the label "Traditional Doom Metal", throw any work into a single cauldron, labeling every band in the genre as a faded godchild of Black Sabbath; if in some cases this superficial observation may also be true, in front of The Time Lord we are instead faced with an original work, albeit unfinished and partial, capable of paying the deserved tribute to the Birmingham band as well as carrying forward a very personal approach to metal, musically measured and reminiscent of the psychedelic experience of the '60s. A gem.