{"id":100507,"date":"2023-06-09T00:00:24","date_gmt":"2023-06-08T23:00:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/?p=100507"},"modified":"2023-06-22T14:48:00","modified_gmt":"2023-06-22T13:48:00","slug":"ep-review-worm-altar-astral-scourge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/ep-review-worm-altar-astral-scourge\/","title":{"rendered":"WORM ALTAR – Astral Scourge EP (2023) | Album \/ EP Reviews @ Metal Forces Magazine"},"content":{"rendered":"

WORM ALTAR
Astral Scourge EP<\/strong><\/span>
\n\"\"
\nGurgling Gore (2023)<\/span>
Rating: 8\/10<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

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Last year this Portland, Maine-based death metal act released a solid demo, so it\u2019s good to have this one man creation back with a new five-song EP.<\/p>\n

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 \u2018Unsightly, Shapeless And Disgusting\u2019 with its dense percussion and grinding, quagmire riffage. The lumbering \u2018Cryptic Wound\u2019 is just as foul with its doomy and despicable trudging, with the vocals being mere repugnant icing on the top of the muddy cake.<\/p>\n

Worm Altar deserves more recognition for such celestial slurry. The title track hits like a severe bout of white noise \u2013 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 \u2018Refossilized\u2019 is the epitome of arduous droning evil that drags you into its vile mouth.<\/p>\n

Bleak, grim and extraterrestrial, Worm Altar\u2019s debut EP is the perfect alien landscape to project your nightmares on to.<\/p>\n

Neil Arnold<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

WORM ALTARAstral Scourge EP Gurgling Gore (2023)Rating: 8\/10 Last year this Portland, Maine-based death metal act released a solid demo, so it\u2019s 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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,5406],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-100507","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-album-ep-reviews","category-worm-altar"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100507","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=100507"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100507\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":100508,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100507\/revisions\/100508"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=100507"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=100507"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=100507"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}