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Altar of Plagues' White Tomb from 2009 was added to the Profound Lore Bandcamp. The journey begins when the evocative opening chords of "Earth: As a Womb" explodes in powerful blastbeats, and the words
Who will guard these hills?
Those which are abandoned.
Those which are exhausted.
Everything is collapsing, can you see it?
Awareness will come slow, if at all.
This is hypnotic and epic black metal. Aggressive and experimental. Not of the forest or the land, but of the city. Quoth the Autothrall:
The imagery conjured through Altar of Plagues is not one of abandoned forests and mountains, but the dark and forgotten underbelly of urbane, mundane existence, transformed into a dark beauty often overlooked.
But as the lyrics implies it is a beauty that is on the brink of falling apart. Perhaps the destruction is needed, and the journey isn't a way forward, but a way back. As Last Rites puts it, back to
the inevitable and necessitous rebirth of our Mother Earth.