Review Summary: worship at the altar
Nothing immerses quite like occult f
ucking death metal, the kind where ritualistic riffs immediately render previous worldly concerns laughably mundane and inspire a deep guttural urge to abandon life, descend to a subterranean place and attempt to summon something shambling and betentacled from beyond. Malignant Altar were masters of that of mostly mid-paced style, concentrating a distinct sense of swirling darkness into their deliberately laboured and hypnotic odes to death.
Needless to say that steamrolleresque (lol) low end grooves reign supreme on this EP - the production is too good to call it a demo - but
Retribution of Jealous Gods is often slightly more doused with doomy melody than the band's later material. This is immediately apparent on the self-titled opener; an achingly slow first riff, buoyed by manic drumming, builds on its addictively catchy refrain and gradually constricts into evil mystic leads and eventually a merciless culminative groove with some nicely nihilistic lyrics: "EXTINGUISH // MORTALITY'S FLAME". The seamless flow of the riff tide is conducted to and fro by drum ascendant/blast priest/fill fiend Dobber Beverly, whose nuance, control and bewildering ability to cram in extra notes seem like the result of someone playing with significantly more than a normal amount of limbs and sit with deserved prominence in the mix.
Indeed,
Retribution...'s riffs/leads are thoroughly dismal and its drumming is thoroughly wild, but it is the (for want of a better word)
strain felt in the punishingly cavernous growl of the vocalist that really crystallises the band's sound; strain not in the sense that his (mostly one-note) technique is bad, on the contrary, but that you can almost feel his whole body tensed in the singular exertion to enunciate whatever evil sh
it the lyrics are about with the deepest, darkest sound his voice can possibly make. More so than the band's other elements, his voice manifests a cabalistic sermon about freakish gods and the irresistible occult: just try and hear the repetition of the song name in the breakdown that precedes the organ outro (!) on "Nephilim Burial" and not be lulled into a blissful morbid trance, compelled to worship at the altar.
