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Biography : Altar (NL)

With the release of their demo-tape 'And God Created Satan To Blame For His Mistakes' back in 1992, the band started to become well-known in the death metal underground scene. It sold worldwide very well and soon every insider had heard of the brutal music and message ALTAR tried to spread. Five young guys with the same musical interest and all grown up in a small-town christian society, they wanted to destroy the laws of their boring surroundings with the loudest statements ever! Dutch label Displeased Records dared to come closer and signed the band. The first real ALTAR-album 'Youth Against Christ' released in 1994 hit the scene with a shock. The intense brutality on this album got great reviews everywhere; it even went into the Dutch alternative charts. ALTAR built up an infamous live reputation and in several cities their shows got cancelled because christian politicians were afraid to burn their asses.
But the show had to and will always go on, so in the summer of 1996 the second album 'Ego Art' was a fact. New guitarist Marcel Verdurmen almost immediately influenced the sound of the band in a positive way. The songs have a bigger musical variety and he cheered up the brutal riffs with excellent solo-leads. It all resulted in playing on the biggest metal festival, Dynamo Open Air '96, in front of a wild 20.000 headed crowd. Nevertheless drummer Marco Arends and guitar player Bert Huisjes lost their interest and were replaced by young talented drumbeast Sjoerd Visch and guitarfreak Richard Ludwig. During the following rehearsal sessions it became clear that this was the ultimate line-up to create the tightest death metal combined with old style metal.

It can be heard on 'Provoke', released in 1998. This album is mixed and mastered by Attie Bauw, known from his work with Fight and Gorefest. The reactions couldn't be better and ALTAR even got invited to play on the Dutch Lowlands festival '98, blasting away all the hippies and mainstreamers!

Hatred is a very underestimated emotion. Still ALTAR gigs got cancelled by local christian leaders and problems arose with Displeased Records. But the fan support remained and made ALTAR decide to do it themselves. They went as fast as possible into the famous Franky's Recording Kitchen-studio and created a very brutal fourth one called 'In The Name Of The Father'. The new album will be presented for the first time on the well-known Waldrock-festival '99 (with an expected crowd of 7.500 people) on the 3rd of July. The songs go back to the old days; pure hatefull music and lyrics that will hit you in the face.

Early 2000 the "In The Name Of The Father"-album was released worldwide (ex Benelux) by the American label Pavement Music. Two songs were added to the tracklisting: the new song "I Am Your Provider" and the Iron Maiden-cover "The Trooper". As the new studio-album was only planned for early/mid 2001 ALTAR decided to please their 'hungry' Dutch and Belgian fans with the mini-cd "Until Heaven Forbids". Besides the two Pavement-bonus-tracks the cd contained two live-tracks, the legendary '92-demo "And God Created Satan To Blame For His Mistakes" and the videoclip of "God Damn You". The "Until Heaven Forbids"-mini-cd was a nice collector-item for all ALTAR-fans indeed, but besides playing a lot of shows in The Netherlands and surrounding countries and spending much of their time writing new material in their rehearsal room 2000 was a quiet year.

By the end of November 2000 ALTAR went in the studio to record the drum-parts. Up to March 2001 the band worked very hard in the Franky's Recording Kitchen-studio with the producers Peter de Koster, Berthus Westerhuis and Marcel Verdurmen to finalise the new nine songs the best way. The sound of the new material is a mixture of their previous two studio-albums "Provoke" and "In The Name Of The Father": tight tough death metal with melodic thrash metal-influences. The band has presented their new cd on the 27th of April at the Vera in Groningen which was a great succes. "Red Harvest" has been released through Spitzenburg Records / Zomba Distribution in the Benelux only. Pavement Music will take care of the rest of the world to spread ALTAR's brutal message!

September 1st 2001 was a dark day in Altar's history. Due to a couple incidents Altar decided to split up. Short after that Marcel Verdurmen and Richard Ludwig decided to continue with the band. After some auditions the right musicians were found. With the new line-up Altar will continue spreading there music...

Editor's comment: In the early days the band went under the names Manticore and Anubis.