Interview - MALIGNANT ALTAR

See here for an introduction to Malignant Altar.

These questions were answered by the band's guitarist, Beau Beasleybeau.

1. Retribution Of Jealous Gods is an exceptional demo, how has the response been so far?

It's been great. I didn’t really know what to expect when we were about to release the tape but the amount of letters, reviews (yours included) and tape orders have really blown me away. The amount of help that both Maggot Stomp and The Other Records have given us has really helped get the demo into a lot of people's hands and I’m forever in both of their debts for this. 

2. Ceremonial Decapitator (live demo) is also great, have you been doing many live shows?

So far we have only done two shows. When we started the band we all kind of made the decision to not play many shows, but maybe do three or four really sick shows a year. I've always been a fan of bands who didn’t play much because I feel it lends a level of mystique to what they do. We are also getting pretty old and moving full stacks and double bass kits is not something my body can handle every week. 

3. You share a bassist with the also-excellent Necrofier, how did that come about?

Well, our bassist Mat is kind of man around town when it comes to laying down dirty low end in Houston. When we were putting the band together it was a no brainer that he was going to be the bass player and I’m pretty sure Christian and Necrofier felt the same way. 

4. Could you tell us a little about what the death metal scene in Houston is like?

I feel right now is a great time to be playing death metal in not only Houston but just about anywhere. So many great bands are coming out and it feels like a international scene is really gaining momentum. Besides MA, Houston is also the breeding ground of the legends Imprecation, the new death metal heavy weights Cemeterian, the death grinding vortex of Cryptic Void, the death thrash assault of Oath Of Cruelty, blasting death warlords Sacrocurse, and the Satanic ancients Blaspherian, among others. I'm hoping some new, younger people get into the scene and create more bands. 

5. It’s a clichéd question, but who are your main influences (if indeed you feel you have influences)?

For guitar, Trey from Morbid Angel has been an inspiration since I was a kid as far as death metal is concerned. I always felt he tried to push the boundaries of both his playing and what the riffing style of Morbid Angel would be with each new release. I'm also a huge fan of Suffocation and lot of that other first wave east coast death (Pyrexia, Morpheus Descends etc) before it got too slammy. Terrance is a fucking riff master. 

6. It says on your Bandcamp that an album called Realms Of Exquisite Morbidity is forthcoming, how far into the process are you with that?

We go into the studio in September and I am really stoked with how these songs turned out. We tried to take what we did with the demo but introduce more variation (faster tempos) to kind of take the songs to different places. We already have the art work secured and it's fucking sick. Lucas Korte knocked it out and everybody should look at what he’s doing because he’s blowing up right now. Maggot Stomp and The Other Records are doing US and Euro pressings and there will also be a CD that will contain both earlier demos as bonus tracks. 

7. Do you have any other future plans that you can share with us?

After we get this LP out the next big thing for us is going out to play Maryland Death Fest next year. We are beyond honored to get to play and there's so many bands I can’t wait to see. We are also talking of maybe hitting New York around December and hopefully California early 2020. Because of job commitments we aren’t really able to tour so we kind of need to focus on doing isolated and well-planned fly-out gigs. I'd like to try and do a two song 7” sometime later next year, but I think we need to try and get through all this other shit first.

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