CD Reviews

Altar Of Eden - Chimeras

February 2021

Sound Grotesca

Texas based, post-punk with strong 80's roots.

Listening to this, there is a sense that you are in a concert waiting for Christian Death on stage and these guys are the support act, that just fits so perfect.

Altar Of Eden are coming from Texas and they play a pure old school deathrock, post punk, goth riffs. And that's exactly what they do. And they do it really good. I guess if the recording of this tape was as it should the result would be even better. "Chimeras" was recorded in a live session of the Texas trio and the sense of demo release is obvious.

Despite this, everything else in this is excellent. Altar Of Eden sounds like coming out from the batcave. With sharp guitar riffs and an amazing, strong bass-line all over the album, they manage to create a sens of a really old school post-punk and death, goth rock.

"Chimeras" is released via Sound Grotesca, in a, very limited copies, cassette and contains 7 tracks. All of them wit raw punk energy and feeling. Starting with "Sacrilege" it is obvious that Altar Of Eden are not going to be the band that tries to modernize the post-punk. They go and dig back to the roots of the genre. Dark as it should be with a voice crawling over the riffs and the bass lines and lyrics touching the lines of gothic and death poetry. "Genesis" is a raw post-punk track with energy and anger in the sound. "Three Fires" is a dark, death rock arrangement in lines that look back to Cinema Strange or Dead Relatives which is one of their main influences, as the band told in an interview.

"Existence" is a powerful one with strong bass and drum programming. "Matrix Of Chaos" stays in the same goth, death rock lines with the guitar going into sharpness and cold. In "Legion" there is another influence of the trio coming out, and is Leitmotiv, death rock band from France. To be honest, the whole album is glancing to the sound of the Leitmotiv, something that the trios also said in a comment. "Untitled", appropriately, closes the death punk ceremony with a different song in a strange chorus way.

I was surprised by the energy of the Altar Of Eden and the way they play pure and old school post-punk and death rock. Not something we find easy these days, since post-punk has taken his new modern way and wave of the new era. The Texas based trio just opened a door to the bats of the 80's and let them fly in 2021. And they are there to sing and dance for them and for everyone else. It is not easy to find more info about Altar Of Eden since they are keeping all these punk and deathrock sense that comes with their music. The band consists of Ef (vox, synths, RX11), Al (guitar, RX11) and Lim (bass). and tey do not try to achieve anything. They just want to write and out out their music.

I say, if you love the old school goth punk and deathrock, go for it. And I am looking forward to listening more from Altar of Eden!

Info:

https://soundgrotesca.bandcamp.com/album/altar-of-eden-chimeras