Upon The Altar – Descendants Of Evil

Upon The Altar is a Polish Blackened Death Metal trio, funded half a decade ago – Apparently with the express purpose of wreaking as much havoc as humanly possible (this theory is formed on the basis of the three band members being in some way, shape or form related to another fourteen bands aside from this one, whether it be as a live or current member). 

Since their inception five years ago they have so far released a grand total of four albums, with two of them (this one included) being Full-Length releases. And while I cannot, for good reasons, speak of the albums that came before, Descendants Of Evil is definitely marked down as a powerhouse of a performance in my book. 

Despite its relatively short runtime just shy of thirty-six minutes, it slowly cranks up the dial to eleven over the course of “Baneful Benediction”, the first track – Then keep on going until said dial snaps off sometime during the third track and onwards. 

Now, I seem to have gone on numerous rants over the years about how I, as a general rule, am not a fan of mixing genres, such as Death and Black Metal, considering it overdone and often not worth the effort (mostly due to my love of the individual genres and what they can offer separately). I do also, however, occasionally point out that a few bands manage to create this merger seamlessly and without one genre dominating the other. My favourite examples of this for years have been both God Dethroned and Dissection, between which I would say Upon The Altar rather comfortably lands. It has all the aggression and distorted malice of the former, wrapped up in the organised chaos of the latter, turning them into a very enjoyable middle ground. 

Now, does this mean that they bring anything new to the table, as far as their ‘weaponized’ genre of choice is concerned? Almost by definition, not it does not. However, they do prove beyond a reasonable doubt that when put into the hands of competent and engaged musicians, the genre (despite my own prejudices) are very much possible and enjoyable. 

Eight tracks, each and every one of them worthy of a spin or two. 

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