Hailing from the land that gave us the likes of MERCYFUL FATE, ALTAR OF OBLIVION was formed in 2005 in the city of Aalborg, Nordjylland, in 2009 they released their debut album "Sinews of Anguish", a concept album on World War I, it was received with some good reviews, even with a user on the Metal Archives calling it "one of the decades best doom release", and now they follow it with their sophomore album "Grand Gesture of Defiance", let me tell you, this might be one of the best doom releases of this year.

What stands out the most about this album is Mik Mentor's vocals, it is his haunting, melodic, almost operatic vocals that "carry" the songs forward creating a dark atmosphere, which is not to say that the other instruments are somehow lacking or dispensable, quite the opposite they don't do too little or too much, they do what must be done for what the song needs. This is why I fucking love this album so much. Another thing that sets this band apart from other bands of this genre it is the fact that they don't need to resort to standard Satanic lyrics.

In the last few years we have seen to what some people have called a "revival" of Heavy Metal, I don't care much for this phrase because it somehow implies that Heavy Metal at some pointe had died, but since I can't think of a better word for it I will have to settle for it. Anyway with bands like EVILE, LAZARUS A.D., PARANORM, MUNICIPAL WASTE, BEAST, etc. carrying Thrash Metal forward and being the successors for those that came before, ALTAR OF OBLIVION can be called the successor for bands such as CANDLEMASS and SAINT VITUS, carrying forward the genre of Doom Metal into the next generation of Metalheads.

Lately I have been drawn more and more towards the Doom Metal subgenre, a genre of Metal that has always been constant never quite getting at the same level of popularity as Thrash, Death or Black, and I am glad I did, otherwise I would have never discovered this amazing band.