After
finally surmounting all the obstacles with regard to the recording of
the album you would think that the final simple aspects of pressing and
printing would have been a mere formality, but I’m afraid not with
this band!
The whole artwork had to be converted into Quark format before it could
be printed which of course delayed the proposed release date for some
three weeks and then a fault was found with the jewel cases that creased
and distorted the covers which in turn delayed it even further. The whole
lot had to be reprinted and done again, typical! That said, all the crap
that had preceded the release was soon forgotten once it finally saw the
light of day and started to circulate. The mood had obviously been kick
started and set in motion by an excellent review of the album written
by Rich Walker (Miskatonic Foundation) for the U.S based ‘Hell Ride
Music’ site, which certainly stirred up a considerable amount of
initial interest from many respected quarters, which has continued and
is still accelerating up to the time of writing. Many excellent reviews
followed, the Literary standard and grasp of expression of the various
authors is of such an extremely high standard and calibre that rather
than let them be lost forever after only a few short weeks to languish
in the various Zine and website ‘reviews archive sections’
they have been collected, with the consent of the composers, and installed
on the bands website for all to read for the foreseeable future! If just
a fraction of this positive reaction had been forthcoming all those years
ago who knows what would have transpired! The upshot of this surge of
activity has led to a further fortuitous widening of the bands horizons
with Pagan Altar now being accepted in other areas of our favourite music. 
For
example a considerable amount of albums have been circulated through many
sites that deal mainly with other Genres i.e. Stoner rock etc which probably
would have been unthinkable before the release of the ‘Lords’
album!The new release has also generated a resurgence of interest in the
first album, which has now almost moved into the realms of folklore to
some. Many new bands openly admit that this album and Pagan Altar in general
for that matter had greatly influenced their early musical beginnings
and I feel there is no greater compliment one musician can pay to another!
The question of supply and demand also applies to I Hates ‘Time
lord’ vinyl with Oracle receiving many requests with regard to where
and how to obtain it but having been a limited edition it is now becoming
increasingly rare! Perhaps with hindsight Ola of I HATE RECORDS should
have initially upped the anti and had considerably more pressed before
it eventually finds it’s way onto E BAY at a ridiculous price or
some bright spark decides to bootleg it! To be truthful I don’t
think he and most certainly Pagan Altar themselves had the remotest inkling
that the demand would reach the level it did!
