Skeletal Remains - Beyond The Flesh

Ever since the release of their debut demo ''Desolate Isolation'', Skeletal Remains has been a band that I've pursued eagerly, awaiting for a fresh, vivid new carnage to leap out of the bush and pummel me into gory, sublime submission, and shortly after the demo, the German old school fervent FDA Recotz bring us the band's debut album, ''Beyond The Flesh'', which is a record I can firmly label as fleshy and vivacious, beefy fucking death metal with a jumpy, crushing groove do it that simply outsmarts the more casual tenets of all the Incantation/Dismember gimmicks emerging amid cavernous brute force. These Californians have specifically appealed to me (and probably other metalheads who find the current death metal trends redundant) due to the influences they pick while churning out their cajoling compositions of flesh. 

Instead of massing riffs akin to ''Onward To Golgotha'' or ''Left Hand Path'', there's a tremendous amount of Pestilence worshiping here, much more prevalent and meticulously formulated than you might think; and entire arsenal of heavyweight chunks and grooves with plummeting drum pattern stretched over it, and moreover, while a the band securely unleashes punishing ''Consuming Impulse''-esque riffs, the anatomy also incorporates plenty of early Death for that gnarly, feverishly vile ebullition of rot and bile, traditional Floridian brutality a la Brutality or Malevolent Creation, hints of Nocturnus circa 1990, and I even tend to hear that gritty technical output of death metal I always hear of Atrocity's brilliant debut, ''Hallucinations''. Surgical technical death/thrash exhumations will usually work as the main progression implement while the wretched Van Drunnen gutturals spurt vitriol all over the place, and to imbue their morbid excavations with a little bit of melody, you'll occasionally be taken with dazzling, blazing lead tides, sweeping with intense, profound melody.

Although this will drive the classic headbanging death metal freak absolutely frantic, one, admittedly can't get too pensive about the characteristics of these frivolous tracks. The monotony is relatively less compared to many of its contemporaries thanks to the clinical attitude and the adventurous ruptures leading the charge with spurious energy, but repetition may still be a semi-hindrance for those who are more considerate about music. True, such expunging angry discharges like ''Extirpated Vitality'' have the potential to obliterate and arouse plenty of attention to use as a sustenance, but the overall quality still needs a little more variation throughout in order to keep the flesh rotten all the time. Ignoring this, ''Beyond The Flesh'' is a better and much less appalling experience than the music critic could ever hope for, and as for critic/die-hard fan hybrids like me, it simply kicks copious amounts of ass. 

Highlights:

Sub-Zero Termination

Reconstructive Surgery

Extirpated Vitality

Rating: 84%