Freezing Blood - Altar of Goat

FREEZING BLOOD - Altar of Goat (FALLEN TEMPLE - CD 2014)

Ha, I just spent last several hours listening to one melodic doom metal band, which I was reviewing for another webzine… And now I decided to put on the CD, which I got from Fallen Temple, to review it for Panzerfaust… and the musical difference between these two CDs is just shocking hehe! And the Freezing Blood album, which I am listening to now, sounds almost like a chaotic, relentless, fierce, bestial attack, which wants to erase all pleasure and calmness, which the doomy band delivered hehe! About the band I don’t really know much, as “Altar of Goat” is their debut release and all information I have about them is what I can find on Metal Archives. Which is obviously not much. But I can see that Freezing Blood gathers some people from other quite well known underground Polish acts like Mordhell, Moloch Letalis, Martwa Aura… So, there are no casual people involved in the horde. And that’s good, because I can’t believe that such music would be possible to be executed by someone, who’s not a maniacal worshipper of the obscure metal and Satan! Someone like that would never be able to create such atmosphere in his music or bring such devastation!

Yes, Freezing Blood does all that! “Altar of Goat” do create the atmosphere of chaos and obscurity. The music is damn bestial and violent and of course it may also be considered as primitive noise, with harsh production, unlistenable riffs and furious, screaming nonsense vokills. But that is an attitude, which only people who’re not into such sounds will have. And those, who’re familiar with the fierce attack of bands like Archgoat, Bestial Raids, Black Witchery and many, many others like Teitanblood will surely praise Freezing Blood and understand what such bands deliver. And certainly the entire 15 minutes of the demo is a fuckin total devastation, desecration… great profanation! Of corpse “Altar of Goat” is nothing new; Freezing Blood plays very much like the bands I mentioned above, has similar song structures, riffs, tempos and vocals to some of them (even their image, with hooded, corpsepainted figures, wearing spikes, chains, etc is very typical)… but that’s not the point. I just worship not just the atmosphere such music invokes, but also the straight forward attitude, great riffing, diverse tempos – as there are many fast, chaotic parts, often interrupted by slow, crushing motifs...

And it all works damn awesome, for my taste! Love the powerful energy of this music, which erupts when you just play it loud and when the chaos engulfs you… And a lot of credit goes also for the production of “Altar of Goat”. I mean quite a lot of similar bands have sound, which is below criticism, taking a shitty rehearsal noise over something what can sound both raw, but also mighty and powerful. Luckily, bands such as Bestial Raids and also Freezing Blood take the better option. And this is why something like “Altar of Goat” crushes the skulls, when is played loud. My neighbours don’t love it, I do. Killer stuff! Oh, I must also say that I love the whole artwork and layout of the CD, awesome job.

Standout tracks: all are equally great!

Final rate: 85/100