Upheaval are a four-man wrecking crew from Boston, Massachusetts, who specialize in dramatic, blackened sludge metal - think Eyehategod by way of Mayhem after a cold New England winter. Founded in June 2014 by veteran Boston musicians Justin Doucette (guitar/vocals), Alex Betancourt (drums) and John Belmonte (bass/backing vocals),
Upheaval quickly gained notoriety in New England playing a crushing blend of sludge and doom. In February 2015 an East Coast tour expanded the reach of the first demo beyond the northeast United States. A US tour in June 2016 saw the addition of Eric Struth on lead guitar, and brought the self released cassette "Summoning a Giant" across the United States.
With the line up sorted out, the band began working tirelessly to craft a new album. Adeptly maintaining the unrelenting heaviness of Summoning a Giant while fully embracing their black metal influences, eight songs were written and Alec Rodriguez of New Alliance Studios in Cambridge, MA was enlisted to produce and engineer it. The end result, "Altar of Ash", is a half hour opus of aural savagery.