Skelethal is a death metal band from France, who formed in 2012. Their latest album, “Within Corrosive Continuums,” is their third full-length album. They have also released two demos, three splits, three EPs, and a compilation.
This album is dirty and nasty as hell, as if it was spat out by the fires of some mysterious, blood soaked nightmare void. Gui’s vocals are tremendously haunting as much as they are brutal, with a perfect amount of echo used. Will the growls hammer you to death? Yes. Or will they creep inside like an ethereal miasma and burst from within? Also, yes.
He and the other guitarist, Lucas, cast sickening, horrific spells of six string madness with their suffocating riffs. They play an effective combination of old school worship, modern intensity, not afraid to include melodic moments and even progressive elements.
Julien’s bass and Ilmar’s drums provide much of the album's sound and the two of them work perfectly together.
The production is unpolished, raw to perfection and captures the atmosphere as it was meant to be. Some bands need good production, others don’t. Skelethal embraces the way their album sounds and their songwriting is better for it.
The album opens with “Creation,” which is an intro but features a little of the melody I spoke of earlier. It’s a short but captivating song that gets the bloodletting going for the first full song.
That song is “Spectrum of Morbidity,” and the opening rumble of riffs and from-the-grave vocals feels immediately familiar yet it’s a sound all their own. For two minutes it’s a burner but just before the halfway point, the band takes it to another dimension with a more dynamic, fleshed out sound that instead of watering it down actually spreads the filth.
The album is at its best when the band’s profane death metal seamlessly integrates into murky, somber passages. The beginning of “Eyes Sewn Mouth Full,” is exactly of which I speak. The bass swims beneath the surface, a behemoth in a swamp of dirge-like riffs.. The drums are actually atmospheric to a degree, their presence very well known but hanging back because that’s what the song needs.
Another passage in the song grabbed me as well, from 2:40 to 3:32. It’s almost doom in the way the atmosphere just sort of sprawls out without the band stopping their stampede for one second because the sweltering fires here are just as dangerous as their faster paced stuff.
“Upon The Immemorial Ziggurat,” has a massive twist about halfway through an ambient passage that is both alien and haunting. A surprise like this, so late in the album, is impressive because it shows the band isn’t afraid to take it easy and they have a need to keep things engaging all the way through.
The title track ends the album on a 12 minute long instrumental that captures the mood of the album and presented the ideas of all the other songs in one long journey through parts unknown. It’s melodic in the right places, cold and aloof in others, and brutal when it needs to be. A fantastic closer.
“Within Corrosive Continuums,” is a death metal album through and through but it also offers much more depth and layers than a lot of bands that are as violent as Skelethal can pull off. Recommended, get on this now!
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