Published: February 9, 2019 

Canadian blackened funeral doom troop Altars Of Grief are definitely aptly named and on Iris, the bands second full length album, they mercilessly unleash a mixture of heaviness, sadness and all encompassing bleakness to devastating and stunning effect. This is music soaked in sadness but reveling in the triumph of that sadness. 

The epic and sublime (and again, aptly named) Isolation gets things off to the most funereal starts and you know completely from the off that this is going to be something special as soon as the cello led opening commences. This is the sound of a band who start as they mean to go in and the results are completely devastating. Haunting vocals, both sung and growled intermittently, and a militaristic drumming style collide with pounding riffs between those beautiful cello passages to create a monumental opening salvo that once you hear it you won’t be able to forget it. 

Next track Desolation follows and initially follows as a similar path to its predecessor but soon morphs into a heavier monster altogether, showing off more of that blackened metal sound and one that is heavy in a different fashion to what has preceded it as does the devastating title track, which features some powerful vocals as its centerpiece.

The initially more mellow Child Of Light harks back to Isolation with its use of that beautiful cello again before descending into the chaos of darkness with some hypnotic rhythms and commanding vocals,as does Broken Hymn which treads a similar path with no less crushing results, and is a song with a chillingly effective cello led outdo that casts out a menacing feeling that many bands can only dream of.

Voices Of Winter, again, combines the epic soundscapes and blackened coldness that gives Altars Of Grief their massive sound before the sombre and heartbreaking Becoming Intangible and, finally the closing track Epilogue round things off in the most heartbreaking of ways with its organ led march in a manner that is befitting of this entire album. 

With Iris, Altars Of Grief have defiantly raised the stakes when it comes to making music that is affecting and heartbreaking without losing sight of their blackened nature and in doing so, have created an album that is the undisputed epitome of heaviness in many different forms in an all encompassing way.