In response to pending extinction the nauseated search for a gripping point upon unadulterated truth, with steps taken away from commercial noise, the slippery and gnarled down-turned wrath of Bilbao, Spain-based experimental death metal trio Altarage sets their horrified drain upon reality far beyond existential nihil down toward the willful disintegration of the corporeal. Minds a-racing with foresight, the spittle of industrial-tinged noise and dark ambient drugged lurch only seem to add to the dissonance of every thought ‘Worse Case Scenario‘ posits, aching to the bone when the limits of distress have been met. Built by an unknown force no longer connected to the machinery this sixth full-length album is nothing short of disturbing in its messily drafted conclusions, vile in its pain-seeking behaviors, and unrelenting in its needling toward an impossibly anxietous result. Six albums deep and here it finally seems like the potential energy of the band is not only unlocked but left dangerously reeling out of control.

Altarage presumably formed somewhere between 2014-2015 as guitarist/vocalist Javier Gálvez‘ (who also has roots that reach back to early 90’s death metal in Burial) put to rest thrashing sludge act Horn of the Rhino after ten years of activity, soon joined by bassist Mikel González who likewise comes from a stoner/sludge metal background. Knowing who (some of) them are doesn’t necessarily demystify the “music as performance art” feeling their material grants as its experimental node was quickly notable in the shallow pool of experimental death metal bands in a severe, often dissonant style which’ve remained beyond the prior decade. The style of the band was initially differently chaotic compared to today, concerned with cavernous yet clear rhythms and wriggling techniques most often likened to the rhythmic evolution of Portal and Ulcerate when their first demo (‘MMXV Demo‘, 2015) hit the internet, eventually catching the ears of Doomentia Records and Iron Bonehead who’d greenlight a debut LP. ‘Nihil‘ (2016) was an ugly darling and a sludged-at take on death metal which hadn’t yet shown their interest in harsh noise, dark ambient and drone which’d soon become a part of their signature. The biggest observable change from album number one to two (‘Endinghent‘, 2017) was found within the production values, specifically the guitar tone in as they’d appear to tune lower and amp the distorted bass guitar presence for a thickened wallop to their sound which still somewhat carries through their muddier render today.

The main conversation surrounding Altarage in my own circles at that point in the late 2010’s would basically reduce to “No, their work isn’t that original but the population in this style is low and their take explores the boundaries just enough“. This wouldn’t suffice on my part and I wasn’t much of a fan until the verve of their third full-length (‘The Approaching Roar‘, 2019) made sense, exactly what a fan of underground sludge might’ve wanted from the Portal and Deathspell Omega school of abstracted rhythm guitar technique and still somewhat of a hi-fi standout among a lot of similar acts at the time. It was a start, the chaos they’d long promised was just then arriving as an opposing force that’d been self-assured and truly destructive. The great point of self-destruction, the breaking point, and the test of their mettle would arrive with the profound in hindsight yet gloriously over-served ‘Succumb‘ (2021) where their true kaleidoscope burst into view. The imposing crunch and groove of it all didn’t just sound huge and more twisted out of form than ever but it finally broke the dam in terms of harsh noise and drone being infused into their experience. It was excruciating, atonal, obnoxious and often nonsensical and as such a much beloved release on my part about a year after release.

Consider that phase of the band the “working harder” modus in action, developing a signature art, and since then their work has felt like a “working smarter” as they attempt to sell equitant value between harsh noise/dark ambient and their overloaded guitar driven dissonant abstractions of death metal. The result was what I’d consider a mLP with the ‘Sol Corrupto‘ (2022) 12″ an album which I and many others bought blind and deaf having no real idea of what to expect of the album. If you’d missed out on it there was one seven minute death metal song, nine minutes of whipping (+ amp drone), and a twenty minute dark ambient piece. they’d just about lost me as a fan when that LP first arrived, it was equally a test of the consumer as it was the boundaries of their act but not without its merits if we don’t consider it a follow-up to ‘Succumb‘. In fact that interstitial moment should reasonably prepare folks for the middle-ground that is ‘Worst Case Scenario‘, as they keep a foot in the portal of harshest ambiance while returning to the aggro-death clustered chunk and bonk of their 2021 behemoth, this time paring it all down to about ~37 minutes.

Pain, (god)flesh, and the bodied corpse. — Altarage‘ve built a monstrosity out of atonal clangor, blunted dissonant phrases and heavy grooves before in fact at this point many would argue their slower crunchier work is where their actual signature lies based on their two previous releases but here they’ve kicked off the album giving us their most wrathful and damaging set of physical feats to date with the ground-in dirt of “Enigma Signals” pacing up the heart to meet the rhythmic demands of their intricate work and “Case Full of Putrid Stars” as a showcase for insane finesse. The former being a quick reminder of the basal misery that the trio have always brought while the latter emphasizes that for all of the noisome wrack going on their core statement is not lost or blurred beneath. “Case Full of Putrid Stars” is clearly an intended centerpiece for the listener as its bass frequencies melt the floor beneath the stereo and the multi-guitar wrist taxing progression of the main verses paired with stop-start antics make for a brilliant reminder that there was some potential beyond the very complete vision of ‘Succumb‘.

We then transition to the dual-vocal drained chaotic grinding whip of phase two where the blitzkrieg of “Cataract” eventually transitions from four-count worming hardcore progressions to its main crawling speed, leaving the last two minutes to bang out a Godflesh-esque ringing riff and the surreal building hum beneath. This is the first unexpectedly captivating point on the album, brief as it is before “Øwork” picks the prior thought right back up and exacerbates the gymnastic qualities of these bonking, mathematically ripped-at riffs. Again, the demonic layering of vocals on these two pieces are an odd choice and one with no real payoff.

The clear standout, the main event and the most imposing act on ‘Worst Case Scenario‘ at just over nine minutes in length, “Gift of Awakening”, doesn’t necessarily find Altarage touching upon noise rock proper so much as it reflects the ringing, bounding clangor of where noise rock and industrial rock met with metal guitarists in the late 80’s, a bit past early Swans for a moment of ‘Streetcleaner‘ in this piece. Of course this is decades past, fill in the blanks as you see fit but the core of this rhythmic statement as it develops, swelling into post-music in the middle before chugging out, has some brilliant depth despite how simply lain it all is. Later on in the album closer “Exhaust” takes us back to a similarly dire (but very different) point of motorized repetition, a grinding piece which manages its own atmospheric drift off to nowhere as the album fades out and I couldn’t help but feel there was an intentional choice made to link these two pieces in feeling; While these are some of the best moments on ‘Worst Case Scenario‘ they don’t necessarily hold up to the rhythmic ideas featured and broken into on the otherwise less cohesive ‘Succumb‘ if you are seeking something more readably dissonant black/death metal in mind.

For my own taste the spectacle and the depth of the album has been reached at that point and the remaining ~ten minutes do little more than play with meter, push around a few bonking down-tuned riffs and eventually fade out with less of a statement made than expected. While this feels necessarily complete as a listening experience it only just seemed like Altarage were striking upon gold in the middle of “Gift of Awakening” and at that point they authored a solid outro and dusted their hands of it. Cutting “The Rigid Subject” would’ve done well to add to the profundity of the second half of the album and to my ear this speaks to the opposite issue that ‘Succumb‘ had a few years ago, in this case the shorter length of the release doesn’t equate to a more potent result whereas the prior record suffered from too many great ideas and the glut of a ~20 minute ambient piece. At the very least ‘Worse Case Scenario‘ has convinced me that continuing to follow the work of this band will continue to bear some impressive reward in most cases though I’m not sure the consistency of their choices lines up with what I consider their deepest-held strengths. That said the effect of the album as a damaging, doomed and endlessly frustrated state of mind is not lost upon me. A moderately high recommendation.

---