Unholy Altar have signed to BLKIIBLK, five years after forming and one year after their first tour of Europe.
"A new chapter begins, and with it comes our darkest offering yet," the band said. "The gates have opened." Which is the standard register for this kind of announcement and tells you nothing, so the useful detail is elsewhere: BLKIIBLK is run by the Global Head of A&R at Frontiers Label Group, and what he says he bought was a band that had done the work. "They've put in the work in the underground," he said. "There's a real sense of danger to this band."
The catalogue behind that is short and getting better. The early recordings took the raw second wave approach at face value. Veil Of Death! Shroud Of Nite in 2024 and A Sullen Dark Sky the year after let more melody in without softening anything, which is the hard version of that transition.
They have played the Decibel Metal and Beer Festival and crossed Europe once. A label signing a band at this exact point, rather than after the third album, is the part worth noticing.