Jury's Top Ten Records of 2013: #2

#2: Altar of Plagues – Teethed Glory & Injury

 I loved Mammal and I might love this even more. Furious, precise, atmospheric, dense and, most of all, inventive. Moody industrial in God Alone and Twelve Was Ruin, pummeling, post-rock in A Body Shrouded, furious minimalism in A Burnt Year, a blackened Rolling Stones in A Remedy and a Fever, the precise Found Oval and Final. Only the vocals really evoke anything of Altar of Plagues' black/blackened metal past.  Sadly, the band split up shortly after this album's release, making this an epitaph of sorts, nicely capping their consistently excellent discography.

I heard this, too:
Stay Here (EP): Quite good sludge/doom racket, rather reminiscent of Kylesa. This is only a two-track 7” so I won’t stake too much on two songs, but I’m eager to see what these Ottawa lads can do over the length of a full album.

Wolves Carry My Name – Amongst Ruin & Ashes: Kind of bizarre. Halfway through track two I was resigned to suffering through another ho-hum Isis homage, only for the song to suddenly take a dramatic turn south, as in the deep south, sounding, briefly, a lot like Pepper Keenan-era Corrosion of Conformity. No luck with the vocals, though, as the post-rock barking persisted, making for a very unusual mélange of styles. Strangely enough, it’s not terrible…just really, really odd.