The Stockholm trio Doomherre open the album with the gritty and uncompromising «Blood Relics of Old», drawing on influences from Candlemass, Trouble and The Obsessed. Obelisk.net points to a clear Type O Negative influence in the vocal delivery and guitar tone, and the track does the job: it sets the mood and hits hard from the very first second.

Ordos follow this up with «Inferno», which is the album’s second-longest track at over ten and a half minutes. The track builds up patiently before engulfing the listener with full-bodied doom heaviness. The crescendo and the reverb-heavy finale are what Obelisk.net highlights as the highlight.

Hexjakt are a doom trio from Västmanland, formed in 2024, who create slow-moving, atmospheric music built on dense fuzz, deep bass resonance and hypnotic tempos. Their approach favours immersion over immediacy and constructs soundscapes rather than conventional song structures. On «Svartkonst», the sound is more aggressive and post-metal-influenced than that of the two previous bands, with screaming vocals and a dark, menacing atmosphere that makes this the rawest moment on the split. I saw them at Desertfest Oslo this year.

The Finnish band Kaiser round off the album with a heavy final track – and the album’s longest track. Since emerging from the underground scene in East Helsinki in 2013, they have built an international reputation through constant touring and a sound that fuses stoner rock, desert rock, punk and doom into a single fuzz-soaked package. «Sonic Satan» clearly stands out the most, with an explosive, riff-driven energy that gives the album the release it needs towards the end. Whilst the first three bands simmer and smoulder, Kaiser blow the door wide open.

*Four Altars of Sin* has been released on vinyl and digitally, and is both a celebration of the friendship between the bands and a showcase for a new generation of Scandinavian heavy rock. Each band has its own distinct identity, but together they create a cohesive journey through the darker and heavier corners of the underground scene. Majestic Mountain Records has built four altars, and all four have something to sacrifice.