Upon Desecrated Altars is an uncomfortable, violent, brutish sort of affair. There’s no soft transition bridging the atmospheric introduction of “Debellation” to the pummelling, blastbeating drums of “The Blood of Mars” as the first proper track. It’s more of a sledgehammer to the face, and a sledgehammer that doesn’t stop pounding. The band constructs a wall of savage, blackened death metal, culminating with a cacophonous climax to the title track in the middle of the album. War metal abounds, both musically and thematically. The unrelenting pace and blast beats lend the ugly, down-tuned death metal a blackened flavor, with chromatic guitar leads, thick drums, lo-fi production, and incomprehensible lyrics filling out the musical core. Left Cross aren’t concerned with glorious victory; this is the sound of a lost soldier enclosed by barbarous violence on a freezing field thousands of miles from home.
The boggy production promotes poor definition across both the vocals and the guitars. No doubt this is a deliberate reflection of the nasty images the band conveys, but the thick, down-tuned aesthetic suffocates individual melodies such that they struggle to stand apart from each other. Close listening reveals hints of solid riffs and instrumentation, and not-so-close listening reveals a sound that’s powerful as fuck, but the songs sound repetitive as individual melodies and instrumentation can’t pierce the black haze. There’s sufficient song-writing change in the leads to theoretically entertain for the 3/4-minute run-time of the tracks but few moments really distinguish the songs of which they form part. Even the solos, typically emphasized in metal production, are buried by the loud bass and rhythms in the mix. The lack of rhythmic variety compounds the sense of repetition, as the drums relentlessly pound the listener. Left Cross successfully shoot for a nasty sound but it obfuscates music I suspect I would enjoy more with production that’s just a touch brighter.
Despite the music’s unrelenting pace and snappy track lengths, Upon Desecrated Altars also feels like it runs out of new things to say by its final third. The record hits its apex in its middle, with the best track being “Burning Raids” and the heaviest being the title track. But after this the repetition feels especially pronounced; there are only so many poorly-defined, chromatic riffs I can stomach. Left Cross offer something distinctly cathartic, but it doesn’t reward persistent listeners because the murky sound and repetitive rhythms squash the stand-out passages. Upon Desecrated Altars is music for when it’s 11 pm at the metal festival and you’ve lost your friends. You find yourself at the edge of the mosh pit; the main reason you’re not in it is that you simply didn’t notice its formation around you. You’re somewhere between wasted and brain-dead but don’t want to give up yet. So you stand listening to Left Cross and bang your head arrhythmically with your eyes closed. I expect this album would work very well in that scenario. But for someone listening consciously and soberly, it’s tougher to enjoy.
There’s someone in the world that will get a lot more from Upon Desecrated Altars but it’s insufficiently rewarding for the average listener. The initial impact of Left Cross feels like a bludgeoning but I haven’t found myself particularly interested in examining that impact. The strikes all look and feel the same and I become numb to them after just a few. There are some interesting riffs and instrumentation here but it’s far too difficult to reach them through the muddy production and repetition. I’m left more apathetic than anything which is a failure compared with the record’s stark opening. It feels like wasted potential.
Rating: 2.0/5.0
DR: 6 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps
Label: Profound Lore Records
Website: leftcross.bandcamp.com
Releases Worldwide: November 10th, 2023
