Cloak Of Altering

Plague Beasts  

Crucial Blast 2014 

The demented masterminds that brought you Gnaw Their Tongues hit you hard with the blasting black metal destruction of Cloak Of Altering.  Being a pretty decent fan of Gnaw Their Tongues I was quite intrigued to hear what was in store for me on this album.  And to be certain this is some warped shit.  Starting with the title-track which is an abattoir of violent, electronic drum beats, horrifying vocals and streaking synth.  The major drawback to this album is evident immediately and the guitars are very muted and basically lost amidst the barrage of percussion.  The endless waves of continuously shifting beats and insane vocals never allows your consciousness to settle into a groove.  And that is a dual edged sword, on the one hand it keeps things from getting stale while on the other hand it prevents anything from being remotely memorable.  The intensity is ratcheted up from the outset of White Inverted Void.  The guitars sound thin while symphonic synth flourishes accompany lightning-speed drum lines.  The track slows and becomes somewhat nebulous.  Translucent Body Deformities begins slow and rhythmic but then obliterates that paradigm by spraying beats and a myriad of tempos before collapsing into an electronic void.  For the remainder of the album it is pretty much the same, stream of consciousness songwriting that is somewhat of an endless stream of beats, tempo-shifts, wild synths and even wilder vocals.  Plague Beasts was somewhat of a letdown as there was nothing really that I was able to latch onto with this album.