Picking their name from a line in Demolition Hammer’s ‘Human Dissection’, California’s SKELETAL REMAINS not only have proven their exquisite taste in terms of finding the right moniker, but also musically by combining influences from Death to Pestilence, from early Gorguts to Morbid Angel as well as the aforementioned New York thrash commando.
SKELETAL REMAINS formed as Anthropophagy back in 2011, and released the two much lauded studio albums Beyond The Flesh (2012) and Condemned To Misery (2015) via German label FDA Rekotz, constantly toured Europe, the US or also Japan, performed at such renowned festivals as Maryland Death Fest, Party.San, Brutal Assault, Obscene Extreme or also Hellfest, and now seek to expand upon that with Devouring Mortality (2018), the first album they will do as a co-release via Century Media Records and Dark Descent.
Mixed & mastered by Dan Swanö (Opeth, Bloodbath) and featuring impressive art by Dan Seagrave (Entombed, Suffocation, Dismember), vocalist/guitarist Chris Monroy is extremely proud of this new opus: “It is a true honor for us to have worked with these two legends, and we can't wait to share it with all the fans of death metal!”
And there are plenty reasons to be excited about Devouring Mortality as the new record proves to be the band’s most diverse and crushing opus to date and contains a whole lot of outstanding tracks! No matter if it is the scorching first single ‘Seismic Abyss’, the dynamic ‘Catastrophic Retribution’, ‘Parasitic Horrors’ or ‘Torture Labyrinth’, SKELETAL REMAINS perfectly blend elements of death and thrash metal with Schuldiner/van Drunen like vocals, blazing solos uniting influences from such a melodic master like James Murphy (Death, Cancer, Obituary, Testament) or the dive-bombing assault of Rick Rozz (Death, Massacre), excellent riffs and more rhythmical variety than most newer “old school” death metal releases.
“The album is basically the next step up for us!”, says Monroy. “It’s a bit more technical compared to our first two albums and we have also used seven string guitars for some songs to add a heavier edge at times, but overall it has the same sound and feeling of our previous releases: Old school death metal from the late 80s and early 90s with a little bit of our own taste added to it!” Devouring Mortality shows how well SKELETAL REMAINS master the art of not sounding dated while being old schoolers at heart and is highly recommended to all fans of top notch death metal!