English N.W.O.B.H.M./doom elders Pagan Altar will release remastered EP The Time Lord through Shadow Kingdom Records on 11 September 2012.
Having previously only available limited vinyl runs, The Time Lord has hitherto harder to find than a taxi on New Year’s Eve, a pint of unicorn milk, etc… This is the first time it has been released on CD, and if “The Black Mass” is anything to go by, the remaster sounds incredible.
The title-track and “Highway Cavalier” were recorded in London in 1978, and were among the first tracks Pagan Altar committed to tape. Though all five tracks have been scrubbed up for CD the archaic turn-of-the-decade earthiness is still in every riff. There are many tracks that can claim to define Heavy Metal, and “The Black Mass” is one. But Pagan Altar can claim several; they are the very quintessence of metal.
Formed in south London in 1976 by Alan and Terry Jones, Pagan Altar were criminally undersold in every quarter—labels never backed them, they never reached the audiences they should have. Their sound, was nonetheless hugely influential; the sense of Occultist ritual in their live show is the sort of thing that Ghost and In Solitude have cribbed to great success. Alongside the likes of Witchfinder General, they were among the first to bring doom to N.W.O.B.H.M. You can read a detailed biography of the band here.
You can order The Time Lord and other Pagan Altar releases here. No esoteric Tolkien-esque hero quest necessary, just a mouse click.
Pagan Altar live in London, Live Evil festival 2011
https://youtu.be/7WVhS_zYJZM
