What was originally a non-event in the 80s and 90s, the reissue of Pagan Altar’s debut album that never was, Judgement Of The Dead on the Italian Cruz Del Sur label, is a momentous occasion now that doom metal has finally built up a sizeable audience in the past 15 years. This comes complete with a ghost story.
While metal flourished in the 80s, from the blossoming of the New Wave of British Heavy Metal into artistic heights of thrash and death metal, to the commercial heights of hair metal, nothing was more ignored and neglected like the long-suffering architects of doom metal. It just wasn’t fashionable at the time to have a sub-genre based on an early 70s album, even if that album, Black Sabbath’s Master Of Reality (1971) is one of the greatest of all time. Coming up in the era of the UK NWOBHM scene along with Witchfinder General, Pagan Altar were particularly down on their luck underdogs. Despite working at their craft since the late 70s, and developing an elaborate stage show with skulls, coffins, hooded sorcerer cloaks and pyrotechnics, they didn’t even have an official album properly released in their first incarnation. Songs they recorded in 1982 were meant as a demo to secure a record deal, so they could record them properly as the album Judgement Of The Dead. Perhaps rumors that the Pagan Altar studio was cursed were true, as the deal never happened, and the demos were released in the 90s under the mistaken title, Volume I. Mimicking the seemingly cursed career path of American forebears Pentagram, it wasn’t until 2004 when father Terry (vocals) and son Alan Jones (guitar) put together a new band and released an official album, The Lords Of Hypocrisy.
After reissuing demos from 1978-79 as The Time Lord, Cruz Del Sur finally gave Judgement Of The Dead a proper release with cleaned up sound and the original intended album art. Perhaps the curse has finally lifted now that they shared the story in the liner notes. The Pagan Altar studio was attached to a large double fronted Victorian house built on Church ground and situated on what used to be crossroads. Rumor has it that witches were burnt in the location of the sign of the cross that the crossroads would naturally form. The band experienced a series of hauntings during recording. Local legend suggested it was haunted by an Irish girl named Mary Brown who died there rather mysteriously about the turn of the century. The band used a Ouija board and the atmosphere in the studio dropped to an impossibly low temperature. During a break, the bass player was found sitting in the corner too scared to move, his face as white as a sheet. Apparently he had seen the shadowy form of a woman in black cross the room then drop through the floor. In the process of doing a rough mix of a track called “The Sorcerer,” they noticed a female voice singing along in harmony. Terry had also spotted a woman dressed in black come out of the bathroom and silently pass up the second flight of stairs.
The results are pretty great. Though the recording quality is not as professional as some of the better Pentagram recordings from the 70s (three of the songs were re-recorded from their 70s demos), the music compares favorably to contemporaries Witchfinder General and the first Saint Vitus and Trouble albums. There are elements of prog and psych in their doom, reminding us of their 70s roots, but definitely pushing things forward with the ambitious arrangements in the longer tracks “Pagan Altar,” “Judgement Of The Dead” and particularly the outstanding “Reincarnation.”
Perhaps the spirit of poor Mary Brown is now appeased, as her story is spread throughout the world. Or maybe she’s wondering why her contribution to “The Sorcerer” wasn’t considered good enough to be released, and will once again haunt the band to investigate… *WWWWOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!*
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