Besetting the Altar

Serpentshrine is a new face in the American black metal scene, started in 2015 as a two piece by Bryan Bosch and Connor Randlett. The band's debut album, Besetting the Altar came out in January 2017 through the band's Bandcamp page. According to promotional sources, Serpentshrine was “created with the hopes of blending melodic, minor harmonies with the rawness of black metal. The addition of high pitched vocals, atmospheric compositions, and death metal intensity bred a unique sound unlike others... Serpentshrine is poised to push the boundaries of genre-defining music.”

Pretentiousness aside, the description is partly true: Serpentshrine play black metal with touches of death metal, among other stuff. But is Besetting the Altar really pushing the boundaries of genre-defining music? Do they really sound unique? The answer to both questions is a wholehearted “kind of”. Yeah, they play black metal and they blend melodic and minor harmonies into their music at times, but a ton of black metal bands do this. I'm guessing that the addition of a jazzy rock-ish intro on “The Beautiful Descent”, a whole bunch of acoustic interludes, and some strange off-kilter riffing is what the band is considering unique, but it sounds choppy and forced most of the time. Listen to the noodly solo during the title track for an example of cramming things where they don't really fit.

The majority of the music is basically chunky black metal played with lots of power chords and some decent trem riffing, at least when the band isn't attempting to be forward thinking and groundbreaking. The vocals are fairly innocuous shrieks and the percussion does a fair enough job, with little to no flair. It's fairly competent black metal at times, with a touch of thrashy riffing and a heavy handed approach that borders on death metal at times. The songwriting is choppy, coming across as floundering instead of serpentine, which is what I imagine the band was going for.

These guys can play their instruments, as there aren't really any inherent flaws in the abilities, it's just that the songwriting is forced and terribly uneven. There are some really cool riffs thrown throughout, but when taken as a whole, Besetting the Altar flops pretty hard. Perhaps if the band focused on structure and less on being groundbreaking and unique, they might have an even chance, but, as it stands, this just won't be appealing to most black metal fans.