I’m sure you know that bit in Hellraiser where Cousin Frank is all hooked up via the face and there’s a pause before his flesh is pulled apart. Well, the words “Jesus Wept” are also a very valid statement here on pressing play on album number four from these nameless Basque brutalists. Sure, what we have heard before has been pretty damn savage but here they take things to another limit and Succumb is about all you can do when the sheer force of this album hits. And that is what it does from the very 1st second of opener ‘Negative Arrival’ an apt title which plunges into instant chasm dropping darkness with everything battered out at full power. It is so fast and brutal you wonder how the drums don’t trip over themselves and one-track flies into another, all grinding riffs, inhuman vocals, all flung out at a hostile and violent tempo. But despite this there is poise and control, the stop on a dime drop-out of one instrument such as the drums sees the music buzzing from guitar and bass and it is all fantastically composed for those that can see beneath the unrelenting extremity. There are things to look out for on this glorious ride, you may not encounter them till a few listens in but they are there lurking in the obsidian darkness and the juddering riffs.
We know little about this band apart from their Spanish origin. It’s surprising in this day and age they have kept up the concealment over 4 albums but they have certainly gained an underground buzz from those who have been literally terrified by their musical deluges. If you are yet to do so this is an extreme mix of black and death and the closest comparison, I can come to it are bands such as Portal and Ulcerate. There is technicality here, it’s not a bunch of cavemen simply bashing away at their tools and it is at times simply jaw-dropping. Lyrics are as mysterious as the song titles themselves. I mean what is a song entitled “Drainage Mechanism” possibly about unless it is simply there as a clue that it is going to drop you headlong in a sewer of filth? Occasionally there is bleak noisy industrial ambience spreading atmospheric dread before the next plunge into the mire and attack from the instruments, silence is never to be found though, there is always something bristling fearfully away waiting to rear up and attack. Songs such as ‘Foregone’ are fantastic, there is actually so much going on in them they are pretty much fathomless and listening with the volume pushed right up it really does feel like your head is going to explode.
‘Watcher Witness’ is a violent peak of extremity and an absolutely harrowing number with pulverising drum work, frenzied grinding riffs and unhinged screams from the vocal department. We don’t even know if it is just the one person that “sings” on the album, I suspect not. Also, there is a vile industrial coating about things or perhaps I have just read too much into that damn draining mechanism, there’s a bit of Streetcleaner era Godflesh about it all times though. When this song finishes ‘Fair Warning’ gives out a strange sonic sound in preparation for what is to come, this is crunching noise devouring the world, kind of reminding of the sound the misplaced unwitting adventurers in Stephen King’s The Langoliers must have encountered. Its less than 2 minutes between more “linear” tracks but deeply unsettling. I also love one of those things that I said to look out for earlier, the rise and plummet sound repeated on ‘Lavath’ it’s like going up on one of those vertical fair-ground rides some readers may enjoy (not me I stick to the frightening music thank you very much) that suddenly hurtle you towards the earth and stupid speed. One other thing I hadn’t noticed on first couple of spins is the moody sax wailing away during the discordant hell of ‘Forja’ now I find myself awaiting its perplexing and unexpected arrival every listen.
After what would be a hell of a 42-minute listening experience there is no easy escape from this as Altarage decide to deliver a finale in the form of ‘Devorador de mundos’ another all-consuming 21-minutes worth of music!!! Being an extreme music fan and not one who dips in and out of unsubstantial bland pop music playing random tracks of course you won’t be skipping it and have to listen to the album in its entirety each and every time. This is nothing short of an audacious move done by a band who seemingly want to destroy their audience and no doubt themselves in the process. Mere words will not do this justice and the only really thing I can do now is give this album the mark it deserves and urge you to fully experience it for yourself. Altarage have really done something special here, Jesus fucking wept have they!
(9/10 Pete Woods)
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