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WORM ALTAR
Astral Scourge EP

Gurgling Gore (2023)
Rating: 8/10

Last year this Portland, Maine-based death metal act released a solid demo, so it’s good to have this one man creation back with a new five-song EP.

This time the riffs are more squalid and rank and delivered with a wretched, swampy yet somehow otherworldly groove as evidenced on the superb drudgery of ‘Unsightly, Shapeless And Disgusting’ with its dense percussion and grinding, quagmire riffage. The lumbering ‘Cryptic Wound’ is just as foul with its doomy and despicable trudging, with the vocals being mere repugnant icing on the top of the muddy cake.

Worm Altar deserves more recognition for such celestial slurry. The title track hits like a severe bout of white noise – a putrid haze that acts as an impenetrable wall of ice, wire and galactic dissonance. Worm Altar is one of those bands that settle between hideous death metal filth and a grating doom ooze, and closing track ‘Refossilized’ is the epitome of arduous droning evil that drags you into its vile mouth.

Bleak, grim and extraterrestrial, Worm Altar’s debut EP is the perfect alien landscape to project your nightmares on to.

Neil Arnold

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