April 30, 2013 • Profound Lore Records
Ladies and gentlemen, it's here: the next innovation in black metal. Irish band Altar of Plauges put out two albums (and a bit more) of relatively standard-fare 2010s-style atmospheric black metal before dropping this monstrosity on the world and then vanishing. As far as final albums go, few are so intent in their finality as Teethed Glory & Injury is: hugely experimental, broadly scoped, and pretty good too.
Anyone familiar with the band's older work will definitely be surprised by how this album is composed, as I was. The diversity of sounds on this single album is incredible, and it shoves the listener right into the thick of it with no warning. There's industrial-electronic soundscapes reminiscent of Ben Frost, the dissonant grinding avant-garde metal of Sigh, droning doom passages, a little bit of their expected original sound too, all shrouded in this very dark, alienating, cold atmosphere that's surprisingly easy to fall into.
While the band has always been good at what they do, they still manage to fall into the easy trap of trying to do too much. With so much going on it's inevitable that the album doesn't sound as cohesive as it should; even though the tracks are mostly good individually, the flow feels all wrong and everything falls apart when taken in as a whole. It's kind of like they knew what they were going for in terms of overall sound and mood, but couldn't incorporate it with their existing songwriting chops very well.
That being said, I find Teethed Glory & Injury to still be a relatively enjoyable album and it deserves the credit and praise it's received so far. I don't think I'd ever pick it over their first two for black metal, or over contemporary drone / ambient / noise artists for what is presented here. And I'm not really sure it is the next innovation in black metal after all (you can't tell these things ahead of time anyway). But I can definitely appreciate the album for what it is—an adventure, an experiment, a unique experience. And for what it's worth it's got at least a couple good spins in it.
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