The Skeletal - The Plague Rituals

The Skeletal
The Plague Rituals
2011 Metal Inquisition Records
It had to happen. Just as Kam Lee partnered up with Rogga Johansson [Paganizer and a dozen other bands], now he's teamed up with Lasse Pyykkö of the semi-legendary Phlegethon and the more recent Hooded Menace. The Skeletal is pure death metal, and draws from early Obituary and Six Feet Under. Wait, don't run away yet because of the mention of SFU. While it didn't take long for that band to turn into complete shit, their debut full length and followup ep are both excellent slabs of death metal. Forsaking the doom and gloom of some of their other recent works in other projects, the members of The Skeletal go for a fast and heavy style with a strong rhythm base. Every track lurches along like an inexorable zombie. Try as you might to get away, you know that the inevitably, you will succumb. For those who think that vocal brutality comes from grunting like a pig or cupping the microphone in order to get a sound that's lower than low, you should take note. Kam is extremely understandable here (as he tends to be), but he throws in a very deranged style that I haven't heard from him before. The end result is far more disturbing, brutal and effective than anything even your above average brutal death metal band has ever conjured up. But that's ok. Fans of modern death metal just won't "get" this album, as they have never understood that simpler can be better. It's not how complex of a song you can create, it's how much feeling you can put into your music. The Skeletal have plenty of feeling. You'll understand that as they slowly dismember and consume you.