CD Review: Lord Dying – Poisoned Altars

CD Review: Lord Dying – Poisoned Altars
Relapse Records
All Access Rating: A-

Lord Dying - Poisoned Altars 2015
There's plenty of sludge to crawl through on Lord Dying's roiling, action-packed sophomore LP for Relapse Records, Poisoned Altars, although it's not an arduous march.

Unlike other bands of their grim ilk, the doom-laden Portland outfit, creators of 2013's highly acclaimed Summon The Faithless album, don't just creep along stuck in low gear all day. Their paralyzing breakdowns result in unexpected tempo shifts, the epic, almost cinematic closer "Darkness Remains" expanding and changing course at will, as Lord Dying engages in push-pull dynamics that are compelling, to say the least.

And while "Suckling at the Teat of a She-Beast" is a frenzied charge of barely controlled thrash, the title track, "The Clearing at the End of the Path" and "(All Hopes of a New Day) ... Extinguished" are monolithic, chugging surges of iron-clad riffs powered by brutally heavy churn-and-burn machinery and caught in stormy sonic seas, tossed about along with mighty hooks, muscular grooves and growling vocals. Feel the hot breath of sinister blackened death-metal expelled in "Offering Pain (and an Open-Minded Center)." Get sucked into the infectious vortex of "A Wound Outside of Time." When it's all over, lay a sacrifice at these Poisoned Altars. For Lord Dying has wrought aural devastation on a biblical level, much as Crowbar and High On Fire have, and somehow, nobody got killed.
– Peter Lindblad

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