### Skeletonwitch: Forever abomination

#### 28/12/11 || revenant

Whiskey – great drink, isn’t it? I like a whiskey every now and again, particularly after a few beers to warm up with. But I don’t generally drink straight whiskey, I prefer to mix it with cola. Cola on it’s own is also great, definitely up there amongst my favourite drinks. But mix whiskey and cola together and man, then you get a drink. The cola of course does take the hard edge off the alcohol for those (like me) who struggle with the harsh straight whiskey taste. The whiskey also makes up for the overly sugary flavour of the cola. Of course if you buy this drink at a bar, generally you get a glass full of ice surrounded by the whiskey and cola. That isn’t so good, you end up getting an overly watery drink when that happens. And one thing you don’t want is a watered down drink.

Now for those who haven’t caught on, that intro is an analogy. Watch now as I, like a freaken magician, reveal all the players in my analogy and see how those pieces click into place. Whiskey in the analogy is black metal, and the cola is thrash. Aaaahhh. Get it now? And the bar that served all the ice, making the black thrash watered down? That’s Skeletonwitch. Geddit? Geddit?

Yeah ok, that analogy thing fucken sucked hard, I know it. It’s just hard to come up with new ways of writing these reviews after a year and a half. Fuck it, let’s move on.

Ok, so if the intro taught you anything, it should be that Skeletonwitch play watered down black thrash. How watered down? I’d call “Forever Abomination” about 10% black, 50% thrash and about 40% water. The lack of black attributes is what really hurts this in my opinion. Stylistically yeah, they do play the odd section of tremolo picked guitars and yeah, the vocalist does do that high pitched raspy growl thing, but that’s where any resemblance to black metal ends. The tremolo picked sections are generally melodic and mid-paced, as opposed to frenetic and harsh as they should be, so these fall more into the water part instead of the black part. Plus the melodies are, well, for lack of a better word, “nice”. Yeah nice. Is “nice” a word you would ever associate with either black or thrash? Thought not.

Drumming wise there’s not a blast beat to be found. No pounding ferocity either. His feet move plenty fast, don’t worry about that aspect, but there really isn’t any extreme sections or anything like that. So let’s assign that aspect to the thrash. Now the production, what’s going on here? It’s way too fucken clean. Black thrash sounds it’s best with raw, gritty production values, so fuck this album and it’s clean production. Oh, and here’s another question: what do thrash and black metal have in common? Punk roots. Any sign of that here? No, none at all. Clean production, nice melodic sections and lack of aggressive blasting destroy any illusion of that being here. I guess essentially what I’m saying is this album lacks balls.

Perhaps I’m being a bit harsh here, the music is quite decent if taken purely as a thrash release. Perhaps my expectations are too high from all the good press this band gets. But I just can’t help being disappointed with this release. It lacks the raw animal ferocity I look for in this genre. It’s just too damn clean, neat and accessible. Stylistically it fits under the black/thrash banner but somehow avoids the best attributes of either genre. It’s watered down black/thrash made for easy consumption. Fuck that. I need a drink. No ice.

- Information
- Released: 2011
- Label: Prosthetic Records
- Website: www.skeletonwitch.com
- Band
- Chance Garnette: vocals
- Scott Hedrick: guitars
- Nate Garnette: guitars
- Evan Linger: bass
- Dustin Boltjes: drums

- Tracklist
- 01. This Horrifying Force (The Desire to Kill)
- 02. Reduced to the Failure of Prayer
- 03. Of Ash and Torment
- 04. Choke Upon Betrayal
- 05. Erased and Forgotten
- 06. The Infernal Resurrection
- 07. Rejoice in Misery
- 08. Cleaver of Souls
- 09. Shredding Sacred Flesh
- 10. Sink Beneath Insanity
- 11. My Skin of Deceit