UMUR
"The Emergence of Reptilian Altars" is the 4th full-length studio album by US death metal act Dim Mak. The album was released in November 2011 by Willowtip Records. Dim Mak consists of members and ex-members of prolific death metal acts like Ripping Corpse, Hate Eternal and Origin.
It almost goes without saying that the presence of such high profilic musicians as Shaune Kelley and John Longstreth ensure high quality performances all around. Especially the latter delivers one more of those jaw dropping listening experiences that we´re almost used to from his side at this point. If you add to this that it´s not more than a couple of months back that he released "Entity (2011)" with the rest of the Origin guys, his performance here is even more incredible. Original vocalist Scott Ruth left Dim Mak after the release of "Knives of Ice (2006)" and is replaced here by Joe Capizzi. The latter proves to be a great replacement, delivering a vicious performance. His growling style is intelligible, commanding and aggressive as hell. The songs feature some pretty killer lyrical hooks too, which is always an asset on a death metal album.
The music is technically well played death metal with focus on memorability. We´re not talking technical death metal in the sense that it´s technical for the sake of it, but rather technical playing is used for effect. Melody isn´t often present in the music but there are some really well played guitar solos that do feature some melody.
"The Emergence of Reptilian Altars" features 8 tracks, and a full playing time of 30:09 minutes, so it´s not a very long album. What it lacks in quantity the album fully possess in quality though. The opening trio of tracks: "Thrice Cursed", "The Sounds of Carnage" and "The Secret of the Tides of Blood" set a very high standard that the rest of the album can´t quite reach. But as we´re talking an extremely high standard the remaining tracks are still excellent material. A 4 star rating is fully deserved.