It’s no secret that I like heavy metal – I have ever since high
\nschool way back in the mid to late ’80s. And it’s no secret that,
\nwhile I might not always agree with the messages a band sends out,
\nI like thrash\/death\/speed metal, depending on what particular tag
\nis being hung on the genre that particular day.<\/p>\n
But the more I listen to some of the death metal out there, the
\nmore I begin to think that precious little ground is being broken
\nby bands around the world. The formula is pretty much the same:
\nband plays as fast and as loud as they can, band sings about
\nmurder, rape, torture, hatred for Christianity, or any combination
\nof this list.<\/p>\n
Altar, a five-piece act from The Netherlands, does make one step
\nin the right direction on their latest disc
\nRed Harvest<\/i>, but for the most part, the group – vocalist
\nEdwin Kelder, guitarists Marcel Verdurmen and Richard Ludwig,
\nbassist Nils Vos and drummer Skoerd Visch (who recently left the
\ngroup) – follows in the same patterns as so many other bands I’ve
\nlistened to.<\/p>\n
The one thing that strikes me early about this album is that
\nVisch’s drum work, especially anything in the cymbal department,
\neither wasn’t being played very strongly (a suspicion I honestly
\ndoubt) or that they weren’t mixed high enough. Without that key
\nelement to the drums – an element which is fixed later in the disc
\n– Visch’s playing often sounds like so much whack-whack-whack while
\nthe band plays on. The backbone of the group needed to be stronger
\non songs like “Sick” and “Spikes And Pain”.<\/p>\n
The other thing that sticks out is that, for the most part,
\nKelder is a vocalist whom you can understand a lot of the time
\nwithout having to resort to the lyric sheet. That being said, it
\ndoesn’t feel like Kelder is challenging himself enough as a
\nvocalist. He seems to be locked into one particular style of
\ndelivery, and while it works a lot of the time, it just doesn’t
\nfeel like Kelder is discovering his true potential as a
\nvocalist.<\/p>\n
Ironically enough, the track that works the best on
\nRed Harvest<\/i> is one which features no vocals at all. “To My
\nFriends (RIP)” is a track which demonstrates the true musicianship
\nof Altar – and while I know using the word “musicianship” to
\ndescribe a death metal band might be an oxymoron to some people,
\nAltar shows there’s some real substance to their music. (With five
\nfull-length and one mini-album under their belts, one wonders why
\nAltar would need to even prove this.)<\/p>\n
The bulk of
\nRed Harvest<\/i>, though, is a pretty typical death metal album,
\nfilled with venom aimed against God and those who believe in Him.
\n(It is interesting, though, to hear a song like “The Unbeliever,”
\nwhich slams someone who once shared the views of Altar, but have
\napparently changed their views after meeting a woman. Lyrically,
\nthis track is pretty engrossing.) If you’re a diehard fan of death
\nmetal, chances are you’ll find plenty to enjoy – but for the casual
\nlistener, it’s pretty much the same anger and hatred we’ve heard
\nall along.<\/p>\n
Oh, this isn’t to say that
\nRed Harvest<\/i> is a bad album; it does have some enjoyable
\nmoments, and is a nice way to release the aggression built up over
\nthe course of the day. But Altar doesn’t try to set themselves
\napart from the rest of the crowd – and if you don’t try to impress
\nyour own individuality, you tend to get swallowed up by the sea
\nfrom whence you came.<\/p>\n
2001 Christopher Thelen and “The Daily Vault”. All rights
\nreserved. Review or any portion may not be reproduced without
\nwritten permission. Cover art is the intellectual property of
\nSpitzenburg Records \/ Crash Music, and is used for informational
\npurposes only.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":25963,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[6641],"rating":[5614],"class_list":["post-37169","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-altar","rating-rating-c-plus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/37169","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37169"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/37169\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25963"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37169"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37169"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=37169"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=37169"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}