Album Review: Lord Dying

[SLUDGE BEASTS] Describing Lord Dying as "stoner metal" is an easy mistake to make. Between the band's Portland roots and its flannel-clad, Viking-kush aesthetic, one would expect a sludgy, brooding halfway point between Earth and High on Fire to be a comfortable place for the group to land. Signing with the venerable Relapse Records, the same label as local heroes Red Fang, is certainly a shot in the arm for the band's fame, but its ascent to the little big leagues is not without expectation. How does Lord Dying expand on the gnashing, angular terror that made its 2013 record Summon the Faithless such a substantial breakthrough from a scene bursting at the seams with quasi-occult riff-mongering?

On Poisoned Altars, the answer is simple, direct and punishing. The opening title track wastes no time with dirges or preludes: Crushing guitars leap from the mix like pillars of flame before singer-guitarist Erik Olson unleashes a predatory snarl that recalls Lemmy and Tom Araya at their most sinister. It's one of the few tracks that plays it straight throughout its entirety. Most of the time, songs lurch from a midtempo trudge to a proggy gallop fans of Leviathan-era Mastodon will recognize instantly. 

The abundance of ideas Lord Dying crams into Poisoned Altars' eight tracks is both its strongest suit and most obvious fault. This maximalist approach to spot-welding disparate parts together—polyrhythmic breakdowns with explosive minor-key shredding, say—works wonders for tracks like "Offering Pain" and closer "Darkness Remains." But the thundering, full-bore attack of "Suckling at the Teat of a She-Beast" is a not-so-subtle reminder that the driving grooves of classics like Motörhead and Sabbath are too far out of Lord Dying's consciousness. It was the glue that kept Summon the Faithless firing on all eight cylinders, but that thunder and aggression is still put to good use with Poisoned Altars' cerebral dynamics and jagged, elongated structures.

SEE IT: Lord Dying plays Mississippi Studios, 3939 N Mississippi St., with Sons of Huns and Graves at Sea, on Saturday, Jan. 31. 9 pm. $10. 21+.

WWeek 2015