Iron Altar are a band I discovered some years ago at a gig in Edinburgh, a city they call home. They were supporting an Italian friend of mine, touring with his band Pulvis Et Umbra, and I liked them enough to buy a t-shirt. As is the way with the small, independent acts they release music sporadically and pop up at venues as and when they have the time. It seems that Iron Altar are at the point where they are pushing it up a notch.
They claimed a slot on Bloodstock’s Jager stage this year and pummeled the crap out of it, their brand of metal being of the particularly heavy type; all downtunes and very, very angry vocals courtesy of throatsmith Andrew Callis. There are some backing vocals, such as those on “Hunted”, but he’s front and foremost and very scary.
Across the opening songs “The End” (oddly at the beginning) and “Hunted”, Iron Altar give an idea of both ends of their scale. Stupidly slow and heavy in the former, and sandblasting your face in the latter. Oh, but that’s not their entire repertroire. Dig into “Path to Empyrean” and you’re blown away by material closer to black metal. Ridiculous drumming and droning guitars have the hairs on your neck standing on end.
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“Megalith” you can check out below, and it’s followed by “Cataclysmic Imprint” which will definitely leave imprints on your brain. I swear, much as I think each song is heavier than the last, they go and up the ante with the next one. There’s even an interesting, though short, instrumental track – “Shanidar”. Often this is where a band will go a bit off-piste and hold back a bit. Not Iron Altar… it batters you as hard as any of the songs with lyrics!
“Primal Rites” rounds things off and, while not quite feeling like filler, definitely isn’t the strongest track on Promethean. However, it’s up against some strong competition and maybe it’s a “grower”. I guess we’ll see as I suspect I’ll be listening this album a few times.
The production is excellent. Everything hits hard – from each drum strike, to each bass twang. Despite being multi-layered and loud as Satan’s own screams, every single note is crystal clear. They’ve obviously ploughed a lot into this recording: heart, soul and bank balance.
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Promethean is out on September 29th – pre-order now
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Header image by Sean Larkin
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