ALTARAGE Worst Case Scenario [CD]

Four months after the super-limited and already sold-out Cataract EP, ALTARAGE strike back with their sixth full-length, and first for DOOMENTIA since 2016’s Nihl.

Those hooded musicians’ taste for thick and noisy layering is quite notorious and indeed, the guitars alone here are not just drowned in tar but are actually bathing in it in delight. Yet somehow for this quite concise album things are taking a slightly different turn here, the mysterious trio has somehow decided to stray away a bit from their usual path in order to achieve something even more unsettling and bizarre, yet as crushing.

If Worst Case Scenario eight tracks – including the song ‘Cataract’ already included on the EP of the same name yet here with a different mix – are once again some of the heaviest and noisiest bastard sons of the (un)holy trinity of black, death-metal and harsh noise you’ll ever hear this year, a new sense of clarity can felt through some of them. Far from away from the standard ‘metal’ production values and more akin to, say, a strung-out noise-rock band desperately looking for their next fix, instead of lessening their impact, this sonic revaluation maximizes it even more.

Yet at the same time, with songs for example like ‘The Rigid Subject’ or ’Exhaust’, ALTARAGE never sounded so chaotic and so on the verge of imploding, super-nova style. Proving once and for all that no other band sounds or even dares going as far as into the abyss as they do… Behold, Worst Case Scenario could well be your worst nightmare.

• Full-lenght album on CD
• Jewel case
• 12 pages booklet