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Altar: In the name of the father
17/07/07 || Daemonomania
Goddamn, this is a nice kick in the balls from Holland. Sure it is a little old, but 1999 wasn’t that long ago. Unless of course you are new to metal and were listening to a lot of Dave Matthews Band in 1999. If so, then stop reading metal news and go back to doing what kept you busy in 1999 – fellating horses.
So when the dudes from Altar weren’t busy building windmills and planting tulips, they were obviously spending some quality time listening to thrash and hating religion, and it shows. Right from the humorous Conan The Barbarian opening of “Holy Mask” (how many albums sample Conan, anyway? A million?) you know you are in for a good time. This is Eurodeath right to the core, with a mix of melody, blasting, and good ole riffery designed to pound you deeper than a gang of robococked homohobos. Did I just write that? I think I did.
The drums are fast as fuck and placed just right in the mix – they rise to pummel you when necessary. The guitars whip right along trading thrash riffs with the occasional slow chugging death metal beatdown, and the bass pokes its brown turtlehead out like a poop you know you gotta drop, but there ain’t a bathroom for miles. And in the vocal department…gruff deathgrunts with the occasional day trip to Highpitchgremlinscreamville and Gutturalbowelsofhelltown. These guys remind me of God Dethroned, actually. Destined to always be a second-tier death metal band, perhaps due to inconsistency. Their follow up album, “Red Harvest,” sucks nine kinds of spicy ass. Why Altar? What happened? Seriously, there are about two good songs on RH. By the way, is anyone interested in trading something for it? Just ignore the last five sentences – “Red Harvest” is a great album that anyone would love to grab in a CD trade.
While not every song is good, there’s enough quality on here to keep it in my semi-constant rotation. “I Spit Black Bile On You,” besides from being an excellent song title, kicks ass and takes names much much later. The vocal performance on this one features some great screaming – I guess Edwin Kelder wasn’t good enough for the Altarites though, since they broke up, reformed, and didn’t invite him back. Oh well. “God Damn You,” needless to say, was a big radio hit stateside. And “Walhalla Express” starts with a great train sample, and the guitars do a nice job of coming in and sounding just like ten tons of steel ready to run the listener down.
“Walhalla Express” actually brings up two points that I’d like to finish this vignette with; lyrical content and porn obsession. Here’s some lyrics from the tune in question:
“I cum all over your face then take you from behind.
Reign in Blood from Slayer is blasting through my mind.”
Sounds like how I spend most of my time, actually, minus the Slayer cuz that dude’s voice is fucking terrible. But as you can see, Altar do not spend most of their time researching Holland’s history to come up with their lyrical content, and the lyrics for most of this disc are less than great. Still, I love that they hate on Calvinists specifically in “Holy Mask”, at least that’s being specific.
As for the porn, just check out the cover, the picture under the CD (is that called a inlay or something, I dunno) with a bunch of Tijuana toothpaste on a lady’s tongue, the lyrics and intro to “Spunk,” and the “thank you’s” in the back. They thank pornstars like Sylvia Saint for making their fingers fast! Way to go, gang. Nice to see a band waving the smut flag high.
So yeah, “In the Name of the Father” is a little gem that you should own. Put it next to your “Robocock Homohobos Vol. 1-7” DVDs.
7.5 tulips out of 10.
- Information
- Released: 1999
- Label: Pavement Music
- Website: www.altar.nl
- Band
- Edwin Kelder: vocals
- Nils Vos: bass
- Richard Ludwig: guitar
- Marcel Verdurmen: guitar
- Sjoerd Visch: drums
- Tracklist
- 01. Holy Mask
- 02. Spunk
- 03. God Damn You
- 04. In The Name Of The Father
- 05. I Spit Black Bile On You
- 06. Hate Scenario
- 07. Pro Jagd
- 08. Walhalla Express
- 09. In Our Dominion
- 10. I Am Your New Provider
- 11. The Trooper
