SKELETHAL (Fr) – ‘Within Corrosive Continuums’ LP

Tellingly titled Within Corrosive Continuums, SKELETHAL’s third album equally encapsulates their past and builds upon it in noble ways. While it’s predecessor saw a slight uptick in clarity, here do SKELETHAL carry forward that clarity with a conspicuous dirtying-up of tone. The production’s as powerful as ever, so it could be argued that that rediscovered grit & grime come more in the band’s execution – or, more accurately, the songwriting itself. Within Corrosive Continuums immediately sounds like the same band who unleashed those prior two (celebrated) LPs, but SKELETHAL flex a bit differently here, opening up a number of (still-death metal) influences and transforming them into riffs and rhythms that ever so slightly more adventurous, all without (crucially) losing their characteristic directness. As such, the bulk of these largely-five-minute-long songs feel twice as fast, so feverish is the band’s intensity, but dread-draped hooks and CRUSHING heaviness still rule the day. Put another way, SKELETHAL take on textures that are more personal and somber, but keep the expression resolutely death metal. Simply witness the 13-minute closing juggernaut, appropriately enough the title track: hearing is believing, and SKELETHAL will make believers out of even the crankiest “old school” diehards.