{"id":88214,"date":"2021-01-25T00:00:03","date_gmt":"2021-01-25T00:00:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/?p=88214"},"modified":"2021-02-11T12:00:11","modified_gmt":"2021-02-11T12:00:11","slug":"album-review-altered-dead-returned-to-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/album-review-altered-dead-returned-to-life\/","title":{"rendered":"ALTERED DEAD – Returned To Life (2021) | Album \/ EP Reviews @ Metal Forces Magazine"},"content":{"rendered":"

ALTERED DEAD
Returned To Life<\/strong><\/span>
\n\"\"
\nMemento Mori (2021)<\/span>
Rating: 8\/10<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

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Five years have passed since Canada\u2019s Altered Dead infected my ears, to the point that I\u2019d forgotten all about this duo.<\/p>\n

With its Lovecraftian-styled cover art I wasn\u2019t quite sure what to expect from this sophomore outing, especially as so much time had gone since the self-titled debut. However, if you like a more cosmically charged Autopsy then you\u2019ll enjoy this down-tuned heap of drudgery.<\/p>\n

Opening track \u2018Mental Suicide\u2019 already does enough to consume your body and spit out the bones with its massive, doom-laden riffs of heaving blubber \u2013 the guitars sound absolutely massive along with that pounding percussion. And once the pace picks up, the band very much become a hurry in the slurry as cloying, clogging vocals attempt to rid lungs of congealed phlegm only to find themselves dragged into the mire of cloying, clawing instrumentation. It\u2019s ferocious yet sludgy, even in its pace the track suffocates with sickly aplomb before those gargantuan riffs once again resort to a mid-paced lumber.<\/p>\n

Strange then that the album only runs for just over half-an hour; the duo of Julian and Mic somehow cramming in ten tracks of misery, rounded off with a cover, albeit an unnecessary one in my opinion, of Celtic Frost\u2019s classic \u2018Into The Crypts Of Rays\u2019. After all, when you drown in the fetid guitar work of the title track or succumb to the fizzing, gaseous slop of \u2018Empostomb\u2019, you\u2019ll realise just how out of place the Celtic Frost cover is, even if it\u2019s a good one.<\/p>\n

Altered Dead just specialises in crushing bogs of cacophonous quicksand; great lumbering slabs of moss-soaked gloom heaving from steaming bogs and choking on its own algae sick.<\/p>\n

\u2018Final Pathogen\u2019 gives chase like some overweight, sweathog of a serial killer pursuing you through the wetlands, with each rabid guitar chord creeping ever closer. Then the pace quickens and it\u2019s on you, the stench, the dank breath and that final thud on the skull as your face is buried in the quagmire.<\/p>\n

\u2018Ensanguine Path\u2019 hurtles and bubbles, deviously mixed with glowing green potions of goo as the bass bubbles with ravenous propensity in tandem with those frantic meat thuds. And \u2018Rotting Outwards\u2019 slurps up similar remains of decay, the band providing that murky, miserable thrashy maniacal clatter that Autopsy created. Meanwhile, \u2018\u2026Of The Oppressed\u2019 exudes rotten steam from its piles as the vocals become even more choked within the maze of gloomy guitar work and rhythmic thuds of creeping horror. It\u2019s fantastic stuff for those, like me, who wallow in scabby sounds and garbled grossness.<\/p>\n

Manky metal has a new name… Altered Dead. Choke on it!!!<\/p>\n

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

ALTERED DEADReturned To Life Memento Mori (2021)Rating: 8\/10 Five years have passed since Canada\u2019s Altered Dead infected my ears, to the point that I\u2019d forgotten all about this duo. With its Lovecraftian-styled cover art I wasn\u2019t quite sure what to expect from this sophomore outing, especially as so much time had gone since the self-titled […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,4602],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-88214","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-album-ep-reviews","category-altered-dead"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88214","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=88214"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88214\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":88216,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88214\/revisions\/88216"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=88214"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=88214"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=88214"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}