The Bad Penny (beta)

“As time passes on, life begins to lose its taste and the walls start to close in. In order to ‘survive’ in this sea of nausea and distaste, we have to search for some anchor and stay focused on something. All the divagations and reflections find its place in this form of art.”

-Altarage’s Javier Gálvez

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On Monday, we gifted you with a list of the 10 most charming musical performances featuring humans and Muppets. Today we present you with an interview that could not be more polar opposite.

“It seems like the collapse is closer, we are a despicable kind, we deserve the worst of all fates, so if anyone wants to push the play button when the buildings crumble and the flames engulf us, it’s fine to me,” says Javier Gálvez (a.k.a. GLVZ) – guitarist and vocalist for experimental and dissonant death metal band Altarage from Bilbao, Spain – about the state of the world.

Now in their 11th year, the Basque brigade are putting out their seventh studio record, Cogwheel, on Friday through Sentient Ruin and Doomentia Records. The labels are touting the record as Altarage’s “longest and most sonically colossal release to date, and possibly, their most experimental and abysmal since Sol Corrupto.”

Anchored by “Ichor,” a nearly 15-minute song that is the sixth of seven songs on the record, Cogwheel evokes the bleakest churning of post-industrialism, a torturous wasteland in which any oasis that may exist is well out of view or range. Pushing the limits of death metal against the wall of doom, Altarage prove themselves singular once again, conjuring the spirit of Meshuggah’s own “Broken Cog” while draped in the robes of Sunn0))).

Sadly, Altarage’s Cogwheel is the soundtrack of our times. And we have no one to blame but ourselves. With that cheery sentiment in mind, we questioned and Gálvez answered a bunch of questions in an effort to understand what keeps Altarage plowing ahead when all seems is lost.