At the end of each year comes various year-end lists from many music blogs. The Nachtterror / Altars of Grief split release "Of Ash and Dying Light" , released this past summer, was included on a writer from No Clean Singing's year-end list, and Altars of Grief was included on a slightly different category. Links and quotes below.
This year’s list probably features the most rule-breaking that I’ve committed so far when it comes to writing these things. Most of the time I try to seperate out the EPs, Splits, and various other ways we consume our music this age into their own little shindigs, but this year was an incrediibly strong one in all these formats, and I found that 2015 provided quite a few times where I had EPs that were just as good as whole full-lengths.
Which brings me to Of Ash And Dying Light, the split featuring contributions from Canada’s Nachtterror and Altars Of Grief. Both bands, limited to a couple of songs each, break out some of their absolute best for this collection, with Nachtterror creating an absolutely oppressive atmosphere for their section – suffocating and symphonic, with the dramatics usually reserved for stage play – and Altars Of Grief refining across a distinct style of melodic doom and creating songs that are equal parts catchy and absolutely miserable.
They even went out of their way to include bonus tracks by each band for the digital version of the release, and Altars Of Grief covering “Room Of Angel” from the Silent Hill 4: The Room soundtrack is a fast-track way right to my heart.
Highlights for this one (among the few songs each, so difficult to pick) include Nachterror’s eight-minute monster “Upon Ashen Shores” and Altars Of Grief’s second song as well, the also-eight-minute “Your Heaven”. This split became almost instinctive for me to listen to on drives to work, or just when I needed something different.
In June we had the pleasure of premiering for you a fantastic track named “In Dying Light” by the Canadian band Altars of Grief. It appeared on a split release entitled Of Ash and Dying Light that also included excellent tracks by the band Nachtterror. I’ve been a huge fan of the song ever since and never had any doubt about including it on this list.
“In Dying Light” is a thoroughly engrossing and persistently memorable piece of music, from the opening dual-guitar harmony to the huge wave of sound that soon follows it, from the sweeping, exalted melody to the rippling, finger-tapped bass notes and gunshot drum beats, from the anguished snarls to the somber clean vocals.
