Published: January 16, 2019

De weersomstandigheden in de tweede helft van december en eerste week van januari zijn niet om vrolijk van te worden. Aan de andere kant past het weer prima bij doom metal. Het druilerige van buiten stemt somber en vraagt om navenante klanken. Eén van de releases die daarop aansluit, is Iris van Altars Of Grief.

De Canadese doomband beperkt zich daarop echter niet tot trage passages. Soms versnelt men met blasts en blackmetalriffs, zoal...

Published: December 21, 2018 

So with a name like ALTARS OF GRIEF I was pretty sure what I was getting myself into with this release. Now if that wasn't a total giveaway then there's the song titles for example liker "Isolation", "Desolation", "Voices of Winter", etc. This band is also from Saskatchewan, Canada aka: the Yuke. Years ago I spent two years in Alaska so I know about the extreme cold and cabin fever. The only thing missing here is a bottle of bourb...

Published: August 6, 2018

Il nostro primo incontro con gli Altars Of Grief avvenne qualche anno fa, in occasione dello split con i Nachtterror; fu solo un breve assaggio del loro potenziale, tuttavia risultò già convincente. L'uscita di "Iris" ci consente, finalmente, di conoscere meglio la band canadese.

Inutile girarci intorno, questo album è una bomba. Me ne ero reso conto fin da subito e il fatto che dopo due settimane di ascolti non abbia perso in ...

From: Obscuro.cz

Published: August 4, 2018

Hodina mezi psem a vlkem, hudba mezi black a doom metalem. Ponurá hudba, mlžně zakalená oparem truchlivého svítání. Kanadští Altars of Grief vydali své nové album už březnu letošního roku, ale v záplavě novinek mi drobná, nepravidelná perla unikla.

Album „Iris“ se možná blíží víc melodickému death doomu, ale má nádherné, temné chvíle, kdy zní velice efektním blackem. Atmosféra protahované deprese je z...

From: No Clean Singing

Published: July 26, 2018 

We’ve filled this post to the brim with a whole variety of different death metal and grind metal acts, so why not shift gears just a bit and go for the full-blown and melodramatic doom of Regina, Saskatchewan’s very own Altars Of Grief?

Iris was hotly anticipated around these here parts and to put it bluntly, holy shit is it unfair just how good Iris is. Although there was some line-up shifting (and still kind of is, as the band s...

Published: June 29, 2018

Highly influenced by the desolate landscapes and the solitude of long, prairie winters, here comes one of the biggest names in Canadian Blackened Doom with a superb new album narrating a tragic story of a deeply flawed man and his dying daughter.

Formed in November 2013 in Regina, the capital city of the Canadian province of Saskatchewan, Blackened Doom act Altars of Grief has worked over the years to develop a weighty concoction ...

Published: June 25, 2018 

Canada’s Hypnotic Dirge Records is best known for its crippling doom metal but a few recent forays into atmospheric/depressive/black metal such as Kassad, None, Kval, Mavradoxa  and such haven’t been quite as successful in my humble opinion, but a here is a glorious, rending return to from from Canada’s own aptly named “prairie doom” act Altars of Grief, and it’s utterly amazing.

I hate to use the name of deceased folks...

Published: May 23, 2018

El sello independiente Hypnotic Dirge Records nos presenta el nuevo trabajo de los canadienses ALTARS OF GRIEF, una banda formada en 2013 que práctica un tipo de música que podríamos situar entre el Blackened Doom y el Death Doom. Debutaron en el año 2014 con un primer álbum de estudio, titulado “This Shameful Burden”, y al año siguiente participaron en el split junto a NACHTTERROR, “Of Ash and Dying Light”, por lo que el qu...

Published: May 21, 2018 

I do love the place name Saskatchewan and it is from that Canadian province that Altars Of Grief call home as do their record label Hypnotic Dirge. There must be a healthy amount of misery in a place that image searches show as full of sunshine with all the doom coming out the area. But geography aside, we last heard of Altars Of Grief via their split release with Nachterror back in 2015 and the group stood up proudly with their offering a...

Published: May 8, 2018

No dia 21 de março de 2018 a banda canadense formada por um time experiente, contendo em sua formação Zack Bellina (Bateria), Evan Paulson (Guitarra e Programadores), Damian Smith (Baixo e Voz) e Wikk Labossiere (Guitarra e Voz) apresentam ao mundo mais uma grandiosa obra, depois do grande trabalho feito no seu antecessor “This Shameful Burden” lançado em 2014, Altars of Grief ou para nós brasileiros Altares do Sofrimento vem ...

Published: April 29, 2018

It's been a while since we heard anything from Saskatchewan's Altars Of Grief: summer of 2015, or thereabouts, with a split release that - in digital version at least - faded out with a superbly raw and bruised cover of Akira Yamaoka's 'Room Of Angel' (taken from the Silent Hill 4 videogame soundtrack). It's a track that utterly blew me away playing the game back in '04, and though the Altars... version didn't originally hit quite so h...

Published: April 18, 2018

Iris is not the most progressive album on this list. Nor is it the most melodic. Nor is it the most energised. Nor is it the heaviest. But it soars to unparalleled success as an emotive work of art that elicits feelings from me that no other entry on this list could even come close to recreating.

Providing almost an hour of ethereal, blackened doom, Altars of Grief’s second full-length is the deeply sorrow...

Published: April 18, 2018

When a music album emboldens such vivid visuals - it unfolds as a cinematographic masterpiece, in the mind of the listener.

And as in a silver screen award contender drama, this album begins it’s timeline in retrospective. Ex post facto we find the protagonist, alone, “in solitude and twisted steel” - a tragic ending in itself, to an escape journey. A casualty on a road to nowhere. Tormented by regrets, yet “finally at peace...

Published: April 12, 2018 

Hailing from Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada, Blackened Doom/Death Metal band ALTARS OF GRIEF formed in 2013. The story behind the second full-length album “Iris,” is rooted in their prairie surroundings and deals with the struggles of addiction, sickness, and religion. A father finds himself unable to connect with and care for this young daughter, Iris, who has fallen seriously ill. Spiraling deeper and deeper into his vices, and feel...

Published: April 9, 2018

I canadesi Altars Of Grief sono nati nel 2013, fondamentalmente come progetto estemporaneo per Evan Paulson e i suo compagni, per poi diventare di fatto per tutti loro la band principale nella quale convogliare ogni sforzo.

Se già il full length d’esordio forniva segnali incoraggianti sul potenziale del gruppo ed il successivo split con i Nachtterror rafforzava non poco tali impressioni, è con il meraviglioso Iris che i ragazzi de...

Published: April 7, 2018 

Zastav své kroky člověče! Roztáhni ruce a pohleď k nebi do korun stromů. Rozjímej, přemýšlej a nech na chvíli ten šílený svět daleko za sebou. Sleduji zvířata v pohybu, závidím těm, co mohou létat. Nasávám chladný vzduch. Krása, mráz, smrt. Znovuzrození. Pláč osamocených, tvář schoulená v náručí. Jednou tvé kamenné srdce pukne, uvidíš! Chce to jen čas.

Dostala se mi do ruky nová deska depresivců...

Published: April 4, 2018 

The province of Saskatchewan sits cleanly in the centre of Canada. As such, along with the other two prairie provinces of Alberta and Manitoba, Saskatchewan is totally landlocked. Possessed of astounding natural beauty, boasting lush flora and fauna to the north (and a few ice roads in winter) and an abundance of canola, potash, and suicidal deer to the south, Saskatchewan is a land of contrasts. It is at once a desolate barely habitable tundra ...

Published: April 1, 2018

-Schopenhauer

Prairie doom. Something about that designation seems incredibly fitting; on the plains, as often as not only the wind is to be heard, only a stunted tree here and there to be seen, and the surroundings are identified more by absence than presence. Doom’s inherent vastness, then, may be the perfect accompaniment to this environment. It...

Published: March 31, 2018 

In 2004, a close friend of mine lost not one but both of his parents in the Indian Ocean tsunami that claimed nearly a quarter of a million lives. While I hope I will never experience tragedy as dramatic and profound as his, the impact reverberated throughout our small group, and to a comparatively infinitesimal degree, we shared in his loss. Without wanting to cheapen such sorrow, doom metal — particularly in its more extreme iter...

Published: March 29, 2018 

Like the cello that hums the introductory notes to “Isolation”—the opening track on Iris, the long awaited full-length sophomore release from Saskatchewan’s blackened doom lords, Altars Of Grief—I am hesitant.  Hesitant to commit words to the virtual page, for fear that they will be wholly inadequate and fail to do justice to the magnificence of Iris.

But, if you are willing to walk with me down a desolate prairie road ...

Published: March 22, 2018 

The question isn’t whether Altars of Grief’s sophomore record is good; it's a question of how good it is. Iris is a nigh-peerless construct of somber beauty and one of the greatest doom metal albums in years. That much is readily apparent after just an initial listen. Where should we begin? Should we discuss how Iris’ magnificent fusion of funeral doom and black metal perfectly complement one another while sounding entirely unl...

Published: March 16, 2018

Quando a história é tão emotiva quanto a própria música, então está tudo bem encaminhado. Do Canadá, os Altars of Grief apresentam em “Iris” uma ficção que pode ser a realidade de muitas famílias. Iris está afundada em vícios e doença, e nem o próprio pai consegue chegar perto da sua filha. Quando este percebe que nada mais há a fazer, entra no carro e vai embora, despistando-se mortalmente. O resto da história fala-nos d...

Published: March 15, 2018

What does it truly mean to be ‘heavy?’ Doom metal bands have often given us the proof that heaviness doesn’t have to necessarily link towards anger and frustration. Altars of Grief return with their second album, and the first release since their excellent 2015 split with Nachtterror, to explore the possibility of grief and sorrow being truly the heaviest of all emotions.

Iris is a concept album rooted in some rather weighty materi...

Published: March 7, 2018 

Despite being “only” 55 minutes long, Iris feels much, much longer. The second album from Altars of Grief is a leviathan of blackened, gothic doom, filled with a spirit that is equal parts mournful and furious. Telling the tale of a father who abandons his sick daughter, only to die and be condemned to watch her slowly succumb to illness, it is every bit as bright as the subject matter implies. And yet, there is something c...

Published: March 2, 2018

Altars  Of  Grief  are  a  band  from  Regina,  Saskatchewan  that  plays  a  mixture  of  black  and  funeral  doom  metal  and  this  is  a  review  of  their  2018  album  "Iris"  which  will  be  released  on  March  21st  by  Hypnotic  Dirge  Records.

Stringed  instruments  start  off  the  album  along  with  some  drum  beats  and  clean  playing  a  few  seconds  later  which  also  mixes  in  with  the  heavier  sect...

Published: February 9, 2018

Altars of Grief are masters of crafting absolutely beautiful blackened doom metal since 2013. The cornerstone of doom metal from the Canadian Prairies, Altars of Grief is preparing to release their second full-length Iris this year on Hypnotic Dirge Records.

With lyrical themes of the well-known struggles of addiction and illness, this album follows the story of a man unable to empathize with his ill daughter Iris. Capitulating to his vic...