in this house of mourning - "Altar" (Track Premiere)

Written by: The Administrator

It's been a while since we hosted a good ol' track premiere 'round these parts. Why not, then, throw hazard to the wind and mark our re-entry into the premiere arena with something profoundly squeamish? This is one for the misanthropes. Let's get into it.

in this house of mourning​--masterminded by one B.I. formerly of Mountain God--will be self-releasing Enlèvement on August 8. "Altar," the bleak, despondent, and otherwise unsettling single appearing here today, is a lengthy account of a bad person doing bad things involving the titular altar. 

Genre-wise, in this house of mourning​ exists in a nebulous sonic place that I can best describe as "the edges of extremity." This track and the album writ large often work at the plodding pace of funeral doom, yet incorporates cacophonous shrieks, death-doom roars, noisy atmosphere, and tinges of blackened miasma. The whole package is wrapped in grimy horror aesthetics. This is some pretty lo-fi stuff, with deliberate care taken to construct an environment that is far from polished or modern. It's malevolent, and seething, and grim, and more than a little uncomfortable.

​More blathering below, but this is a long track so I recommend firing it up earlier rather than later. Give Altar a listen via the conveniently located embed. As always, we'll meet you on the other side.

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​Grisly stuff, no? 

With the exception of some gruff growls, the vocals are disguisable but raw, and delivered in a unsettlingly eerie tone. There's a creakiness that only adds to the tension--it sounds like Frankenstein's monster attempting to sing for the very first time via his hodge-podge reconstructed larynx. And the elephant in the room is the lyrical content, which depicts the raving cruelty of an antagonist with, I can only assume, a god complex. The POV character discusses his violence in grotesque detail, and it's not an easy listen. That said, while dealing with the depths of human cruelty, "Altar" is a chapter in a hypothetical that stretches across the album's runtime--the band indicates that in a perfect world, what happens to the antagonist would so to happen to the selfish and conniving "awful souls" who "serve their own interests no matter how it impacts others." When confronted with evil, daydreaming a reckoning helps close the narrative.

"Altar" represents a pure distillation of spine-chilling music. The funereal riffage leaves much room to sit in discomfort, the dark atmospheric elements only add to the overall sense of dread. Listening to this track--and the album as a whole--is like watching a shoddily lit slasher in grainy black and white. Which, as we all know, is quite the draw. 

​If you're looking to extend the discomforting experience, keep an eye out for Enlèvement ​on August 8th! Find in this house of morning on Bandcamp here.

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 in this house of morning can be found on Bandcamp and Instagram