Altar of Plagues - Teethed, Glory and Injury

I appear to have begun a little tradition of talking to my friend's boyfriend, who is also my friend, about metal when we see one another at the goth night. It's kind of a moment of "I'm not alone in this pile of mediocrity and bad taste". He's never steered me wrong in any of his suggestions either, this being one of his best (along with Author & Punisher). In fact, after he played me a song off the album, I immediately began calling my favorite record store DAILY to see if they'd restocked it yet until they finally told me to give them my email address and they'll let me know so I'd quit tying up their phone line and harassing them. If you're ever in Portland, stop in because DAAAANNNG.

I do not know how to classify this album. It probably falls squarely in the "post black metal" tag, but i find that concept so fucking ludicrous I can't bring myself to seriously refer to anything as such. I'm a sucker for all that Posty McPostpants music, but I'm over the playing-oneself-in-circles connotation of the prefix 'post'. Is it hard? Is it black as the inside of your cat's butthole? Then it's Black Metal. Plain and simple.
However, this album is considerably more... sophisticated. There's a big crop of current metal bands that are taking this sorta progressive approach to black metal and really dragging it up into some heady places. Teethed, Glory and Injury (wat?) makes use of a lot of synth elements that have taken me quite a long time to fully notice. They almost give the album an industrial metal feel which is fantastic for me because I love industrial metal, but it's rarely done in a way that I can really get behind. The synths here don't drive the music, they make a bed for it. Or maybe a grave if you want to be more KVLT about it, but whatever. When they're not popping up with a rhythmic sample or accentuating the action with gnarly saw waves, they're just back there churning and scraping away like a dystopian future-prog hammond organ, creating an ominous, metallic (in the literal sense of the word) underlayer for what is already a particularly frightening album.
Another aspect that I really dig is that it feels very technical, but doesn't stray into that wanky "technical death metal" realm that I just don't understand. I dislike overly technical metal for the same reasons I dislike 4/4 industrial dance music, no matter how hard and aggressive it might sound. It becomes soulless because the focus is on precision and... well... technicality rather than creating a mood, a place, taking the listener somewhere, making them feel something, expressing, etc. This album is incredibly cinematic without the help of lyrics. I only say that because I haven't taken the time to look them up or try to decipher them with my own ears. There are lyrics on the album, but I have no clue what he's talking about. Musically, I get a vibe of encroaching urban terror, the clashing of nature and what people call civilization. Maybe I'm wrong, perhaps you'll get something else completely, and that's the beauty of music!
But I was going somewhere with that little technical rant. I was trying to point out that the technicality plies in the drumming and rhythms of this album. There's no guitar wank at all, just super righteous blastbeats scattered across an album comprised of delightfully modest drum wank. It has a kind of tribal edge to it too which is an interesting aspect that I think sets this album apart.

Got 9 minutes? Check this shit out.

The production of the album is another point of major excitement for me. I'm not well versed in the technical side of making music, but I've done some of it myself and I'm slowing picking things up from my friends who are far more prolific and driven than myself. I developed a taste for this middle-ground metal production that is neither lo- or hi-fi. I first noticed it on Deafheaven's Roads to Judah (I refuse to discuss Sunbather. Fuck off), and found it again here. Combined with the careful use of synths, it makes for an incredibly engaging piece of music. It's melodic, layered, textured, atmospheric, scary, it's perfect.
Their prior albums don't quite live up to the standard set by this album if you're working your way backward with them because they were still only developing this sound and are more along the lines of weirded out Mayhem but more dense, which is by NO means a bad thing. They're good albums, but this takes the fucking cake, man. By a long shot, it's one of my favorite albums of the year.

Their official site seems to be busted, but they've got a facebook. Oh joy:
https://www.facebook.com/altarofplagues
http://www.profoundlorerecords.com/