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Altar - In The Name Of The
Father
2000 Pavement Music
Track
Listing:
1. Holy Mask
2. Spunk
3. God Damn You
4. In The Name Of The Father
5. I Spit Black Bile On You
6. Hate Scenario
7. Pro Jagd
8. Balhalla Express
9. In Our Dominion
10. Bonus Track: I Am Your New Provider
11. Bonus Track: The Trooper
Line-Up:
Vocals:
Edwin Kelder
Guitars: Richard Ludwig,
Marcel Verdurmen
Bass: Nils Vos
Drums: Sjoerd Visch
Website: www.altar.nl
Shev's Rating:
C+
Overall Album Rating: C+
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Shev's Review:
Cranking out Satanic death metal since 1992, those boys from Holland
return in 2000 with “In The Name Of The Father”. Luckily for the fans of all
their previous material, nothing much has really changed. Due to their
over-the-top cookie cutter Satanic death metal, it kind of puts them in the
same league as Deicide…but without all those really neat-o things that
make Deicide enjoyable such as good song-writing, unique vocals, and interesting riffs.
I prefer to think of Altar as “Deicide-Lite”, and this release
is no exception.
None the less, I do think of Altar somewhat as a guilty pleasure…except
for Red Harvest which was downright terrible…so I’ll be nice.
First off, kudos to the guitar work as the solo’s are very well-placed, well-timed, and
not overly technical which tends to fit their material quite well. They play
tight along side the bass and seem to have near-mastered a strong command of tempo in both directions as well as occasional build-up, and
actually for an album as thick and heavy as this one, the bass is very much underused.
This is evident after listening to the possibilities in the otherwise ho-hum tunes
“Pro Jagd” and “Balhalla Express”. What really
saves the music here is the drumming of Sjoerd Visch, also of The Monolith Deathcult fame.
His constant assault of double bass, violent fills, absolutely vicious hyper-tempo beats, and the occasional blast are in good
taste, and will be heralded by the Dutch for generations to come.
And the best part about “In The Name Of The Father”? Why the lyrics, of
course. They’re so laughably stupid, I don’t see how anybody could
possibly listen to it with straight face, “Your seal has not been broken, with 40% you’re filled, I smell you from a distance, you are perfectly
grilled”. Ha! I love this stuff! How about, “There’ll be a time, when we count, we matter in our own world, all for one & one for all, our friendship cannot be
hurt”. God love ‘em. They should write some lyrics about what they did
over the summer, too. That would be just dandy.
So overall this isn’t too bad of a release. Most of these songs are too long
for their own good, and most are strikingly average with the only real stand-out’s being
“Spunk” and “In The Name Of The Father”. For the North
American release they even decided to throw in the forgettable “I Am Your New
Provider”, which ironically they did not provide lyrics to, as well as an
amazingly decent cover of Iron Maiden’s “The Trooper” (although the death metal growls of
“yiiii-eeeee-yiiii-eeeee-yiiii-eeeee-yiiii-eeeee-yaaa” are pure
comedic gold). Not really any bad songs on here, but definitely not worth
the price of a full album of lackluster Satanic death metal.
Shev's Rating: C+
Discography (last updated 7.28.06):
...And God Created Satan To Blame For His Mistakes demo
- 1992
Youth Against Christ - 1994
Ego Art - 1996
Provoke - 1998
In The Name Of The Father -
1999
Until Heaven Forbids - 2000
Red Harvest - 2001
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