Excellent review Adam, Pagan Altar is one of those bands that deserve more recognition, i would not call them underrated since every person i know who has heard this band loves them, and they have a very small but very loyal fanbase, all 3 of their albums ranks in the 90's score IMO and they are on my top 10 bands for sure, truly an amazing band, Terry nasal vocal's could be an aquired taste like you said, but for me they fit perfectly with the overall sound of band, and Alan's riffs and leads are some of the best i've heard, the guy sure knows how to write a riff or two, he may not be the most skilled of the guitarrist but he puts more feeling than many guitarrist i've heard, something that we rarely hear these days.
About the album, yeah 92 seems like a fair score, i dont think there is a single bad song here, and Armageddon has to be one of my favorite songs from them, when i first heard this album my first thought was " Man i cant beleive this is from 2004" i soon found out that most of these tracks were written on the early stages of the band so i thought that was the reason of the overall oldschool sound, they sure proved me wrong on their next album this band is the definition of oldschool and unlike many bands on the genre that rips Sabbath every change they get Pagan Altar does have an original sound, sure they do some sabbath worship from time to time, but nothing that screams copycat to me.
If anyone is intersted on this band you can listen to some tracks on their myspace:
http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=60090238
And im not sure if the mods would find this apropiate but there is this Live demo of Pagan altar called "Never Quite Dead" that i could upload if anyone is interested, as far as i know you cant buy it anywhere so i dont think it should be a problem.
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