Altarage are a Spanish blackened death metal band and this is their seventh album.
If you’re unfamiliar with the monstrous entity that is Altarage, then prepare yourself for something dread-inducing that will haunt your nightmares. Yes, Cogwheel is here. Offering up an imposing 75 minutes of new material, Cogwheel finds Altarage ready to begin the end times all on their own.
Cogwheel is a work of crushing oppressive force. It’s dissonant death metal riven with toxic doom waste, harsh droning noise, and industrial poisons. It’s atmospheric in an apocalyptic way, giving rise to broken landscapes that are filled with corroded doom and death structures, all shrouded in the mists of blackened pollution. Put another way, Cogwheel is an exercise in brutal chaos, balanced with doom atmospherics, and enriched with experimental flourishes. Altarage have a surfeit of creative ideas to punish the listener with, and despite its length Cogwheel succeeds in pretty much all of them. This is the most ambitious and colossal Altarage have sounded. The band’s work is as bleak and as horrifying as anyone familiar with them will be expecting, but on Cogwheel they reach further into the abyss than previously.
The songwriting is richer and the atmospheres deeper. The riffs grind you down, while the songs as a whole immerse in massive soundscapes that are as absorbing as they are terrifying. A song like Wielder is a great example, as it starts with rhythmic hooks that sound as if planets are colliding, and ends in drone malevolence that’s remarkably effective. Usually the latter would be mere filler, but in Altarage’s hands it adds value. Even the brooding industrial drone Hellscape 1988 works – something like this would usually be a textbook example of pointless filler, yet somehow Altarage beat the odds, and it’s a compelling slice of ominous darkness that sucks you in and won’t let go. Altarage know what they’re doing it seems.
Each track contributes to the record’s whole, while also containing a world of its own for the listener to endlessly become lost in. Every song expands upon the breadth of abrasive ideas and corrosive nuances that Altarage have injected into Cogwheel, making them work for their existence within a framework of grim tension and mood-focused horror. Altarage are not afraid to throw in some curveballs either, such as the strikingly powerful clean singing in Ichor.
Cogwheel feels very complete and well-rounded. It provides an experience to be both endured and savoured, and when it ceases you’ll be begging for more. Altarage seem to have perfected their sound – Cogwheel is the ultimate Altarage expression of sonic terror and doom.
Essential listening for fans of bands such as Abyssal, Coscradh, Impetuous Ritual, Pestilength, Portal, Mitochondrion, Teitanblood, etc.
Wonderbox Metal 