Review 20

For every band that's held up as an arbitrary standard of the genre's arch grandeur, there are dozens who remain buried in obscurity, regardless of their contributions, and in short time what was once artifice is turned into artifact. I'm not talking about those Sunn/Boris 3XLPs, either. Pagan Altar was the original band in black robes. Formed in the late seventies, the group recorded only one record in their prime: 1982's Volume 1, one of the creepiest post-Sabbath records to come out of England. In a kind of Black Mass recreation, Pagan Altar often staged their concerts with candles, sigils, skulls, sable-clothed altars, and inverted crosses propped beside their looming ebon-shapes. But the act never took off and they were relegated to a cult status they've sought to expand on ever since. Mythical and Magical is their second album since reforming several years ago, presenting 12 newly recorded songs dating as far back as 1977.

The album's numerous references to sorcery, occult superstition, witches, and druids are expressed in several shades of the era. Tracks like "The Crowman," "Sharnie," and "The Witches Pathway" web bright acoustic guitar and banjo movements across vocalist Terry Jones' trembling narrations, with some stable if too placid female voices on backup. The general mood is like a combination of Jethro Tull and the Strawbs. Elsewhere, preferably hard and galloping tracks like "Cry of the Banshee" run closer to early Demon, while the dark and doomy contours of "Samhein" and "The Rising of the Dark Lord," bookending the album with impeccable lead-work, epic-depth and melody are all vintage Pagan Altar. The recording's muted tone and somewhat gritty analog sound is just as wonderfully removed from the present. Offered alongside are illustrations by Henry Clarke and photos Ireland's Dunluce Castle, boasting its own history of lonesome apparitions. Fortunately, the music is taken seriously enough to avoid drowning in this nostalgia: What it strives for and in many ways achieves, is timeless.