Unholy Altar - Veil of Death! Shroud of Nite
If they were a less ambitious band, Unholy Altar may have taken the fanfare around their staggering debut and run with it. It would have been easy to follow so many raw black metal bands before them and continually churn out an offering-a-year on a straight line trajectory. Their sound was already razor sharp after all, a cacophonous blend of early Darkthrone and Judas Iscariot delivered with crust punk fervor. With Veil of Death! Shroud of Nite, however, the Philadelphia quintet stakes their claim as much more than yet another second wave clone.
Though that is not to say that their debut album is any less grim or frostbitten. Rather Unholy Altar has taken those defining elements of their demo and sharpened them to a decisive point. Whereas the demo was an exercise in minimalist black metal to communicate primal rage, despair, and dread, Veil of Death! Shroud of Nite’s robust musicality allows for a greater depth of emotion. The general anxiety of a world on fire lingers, yet Unholy Altar is more capable of gleaning the source.
This musical evolution is handled deftly. Even as the band incorporates a greater deal of ambiance, melody, and even the odd-hook or two, they never lose sight of their target. Fundamentally this speaks to Unholy Altar’s acute understanding of their medium. Black metal is, by nature, confrontational and transcendental. A general nihilism is not due to pure distaste for anything and everything, but because there is recognition that within a hyper-consumerist, capitalist society something inside each of us personally has been lost. To confront the bleak reality we live in is to understand our place within it; the genre itself is merely a tool to facilitate.
As such it is no surprise that the strict trappings of the second wave could no longer contain Unholy Altar. Self-described “ritualistic chaos compelled by nature” would not be properly mediated through regurgitated Immortal riffs alone, and required a more expansive palette. Whereas most bands stumble searching for this palette, creating what ultimately becomes bland self-parody of a band “experimenting”, Unholy Altar handles it seamlessly.
Synth accentuation is used just-so; minimalist flares to offer quiet moments of meditation. Similarly a greater emphasis on melody is subtle throughout. The relentless frenzy encompassed on the demo is still foregrounded, just now quietly complimented with blink-and-you’ll-miss-it hooks. Whereas many artists within extreme music take “maturing” their sound to mean gradual abandonment of the dissonant paradigm, Unholy Altar understands it is simply further refining and differentiating the things that worked in the first place.
The ultimate result is a compelling album that is as rewarding as it is challenging. As poignant and raw as it is expansive, Veil of Death! Shroud of Nite is anything but a facsimile of what came before it. Instead, Unholy Altar stakes their claim as a rising star within USBM; a band intrinsically tied to their roots, but ever forward thinking. Other raw black metal bands may find themselves recycling riffs from the 90s, but Unholy Altar certainly never has that problem.
Veil of Death! Shroud of Nite is out now on Liminal Dread Productions.
