Skelethal – Within Corrosive Continuums
Release Date: 12th July 2024
Label: Hells Headbangers
Bandcamp
Genre: Death Metal
FFO: Dismember, Entombed, Carnage, Coffin Rot, Morta Skulda, Phrenelith.
Review By: Eric Wilt
I first heard Skelethal in 2020 when they released Unveiling the Threshold. Their album was listed in the Fans Also Like section of a band I was listening to on Spotify, and it was love at first listen. I immediately picked up a copy of the album from Bandcamp and wore it out. In my opinion, Unveiling the Threshold was a really great old-school-leaning death metal album that was most heavily influenced by Swedish death metal, but that blended all types of death metal into a sound that was not fully beholden to any one subgenre. A couple of years later, I read a review that said that the album was only an average Swedish death metal album. I was curious about this because I couldn’t disagree more, and then it occurred to me that the reviewer, familiar with Skelethal’s more overtly Swedish death metal debut album, Of the Depths, probably expected Unveiling the Threshold to be pure Swedish death metal and was disappointed that it wasn’t.
Today, Skelethal is prepared to unleash their third full length on 12 July, and I’m here to tell you that it, like its predecessor, is just good ol’ fashioned death metal that doesn’t try to stay within the boundaries of any one style of the genre. Yes, Skelethal has their Swedish death metal moments. The songs Spectrum of Morbidity and Eyes Sewn Mouth Full, are prime examples of this, but if you’re expecting Within Corrosive Continuums to be a carbon copy of Dismember or Entombed, you are also going to be disappointed. Just take the opening track, the instrumental Creation, for instance. It sounds more like the opening section of Pull the Plug by Death than Carnage. And then there’s the death-doom of Mesmerizing Flies at the Doors of Death. Yes, the song also has its Swedeath influences, but it is more than that. Upon the Immemorial Ziggurat is more than Swedish death metal as well, as it features a clean section that is more likely to be found in progressive death metal than anything else. Finally, there’s the 13-minute title track, which incorporates multiple influences over the course of the song. And, while I’m no tone expert, I am pretty sure Skelethal is not using the HM2 guitar tone that is so popular in Swedish death metal.
Sometimes, our expectations can lead us to misjudge something when it doesn’t sound exactly the way we thought it would. If you go into Within Corrosive Continuums expecting a record that rehashes the Swedish death metal of the 90s, you will likely be let down. That is because Skelethal is making old-school sounding death metal all their own. Yes, they are influenced by Swedish death metal, but if their last two records are any indication, they are equally influenced by all types of death metal, and Within Corrosive Continuums is another great example of all that Skelethal is.
(4 / 5)
