Album Review: Corrupt Moral Altar - Patiently Waiting For Wonderful Things
Reviewed by Dan Barnes
For us Grind fans the year has been a bit of a boon. Not only have we had a fantastic new album from the Daddies - Napalm Death - but also releases from Pig Destroyer and Venomous Concept; throw into the mix the unexpected DSM-5 from one of Shane Embury’s multiple side projects, Blood From the Soul, and 2020, for all its lockdown shenanigans, has produced some pissed off music.
Patiently Waiting for Wonderful Things is the new EP from Corrupt Moral Altar, one of the UK underground scene’s most consistent performers and one of the most inventive exponents of the Grinding Arts. This five-track platter runs a little over seventeen minutes, yet does not waste a second and crams in so many ideas that you’d think they were having a two-for-one sale over at Corrupt Moral Altar-HQ.
Overall, Patiently Waiting… is as an aggressive a slice of Grind as you’ll find anywhere this year. Packed with dirty, chugging riffs and fuzzed up bass. The drums perform like the engine of a car: sometime idling as the tracks take a moment’s rest, before revving into the red-zone and risking blowing the gaskets clean out. Vocally, Corrupt Moral Altar treat us to a combination of tortured screeches and brutal, guttural growls.
Tempos ebb and flow, moving from punchy and aggressive to slow and sludgy and everything seems to be progressing swimmingly. Yet, Maximum Bastardry present itself with a danceable swagger, before turning tale and descending into darkness. Spirit Breaker plays the sleight of hand of beginning in the form a laid-back lounge-singer vibe, laconic and jazz-infused and suggestive that Mike Patton might just be about to sing; until the walls crumble and the driven aggression and brutality of the situation show themselves.
As to leave no one in any doubt of their intention, Corrupt Moral Altar end with the short sharp shock of I Am an Ocean of Wisdom, a climax of howling guitar and merciless percussion, underpinning the rabid vocals.
It might be short, and have the sort of title usually reserved for an Emo release, but that does not mean Patiently Waiting for Wonderful Things should be underestimated. It’s an aggressive assault from beginning to end and, like a psychopathic dwarf brandishing a butcher’s knife, it will carve you up.
