Altar of Blood: Total Evil and Darkness... (2018)

This was a freebie included in an order with yesterday's Morbosidad and tomorrow's band, which I will not name at this time.  Altar of Blood is a power trio that released their first recorded material last year.  They fit in well stylistically and contextually with Morbosidad.  Altar of Blood is from Mexico and one of their members is also the one-man band Zauront.

This is the band's second release, a four-song demo.  They released a promo a short time before this demo and have since released another demo.  The songs are all very short and the whole thing is over in just over 11 minutes.

Altar of Blood seem to have the same influences as Morbosidad, that being early black metal like Blasphemy.  There is a little more of a death metal influence present on this release though.  The production is murky and the vocals in particular have kind of a cavernous feel to them that adds to the evil atmosphere.  Altar of Blood make usage of a number of samples from horror movies to help with the overall effect.

The music here is ugly and raw.  Once again, there is absolutely nothing pretty here.  The drums are high in the mix, with the guitar riffs being a bit low in the mix.  The songs are fairly simplistic with no real complex riffs or drum patterns, which only adds to the raw feel.  "Malignal Possession" stands out with a little bit of an interlude during which there are no blast beats or crushing riffs, and the band comes closest to a melody.  If they build on that song in the future, they might really have something.

This band is fairly new.  It will be interesting to see where they go from here.