{"id":5211,"date":"2018-05-18T00:25:09","date_gmt":"2018-05-18T00:25:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.surrealresolution.com\/?p=5211"},"modified":"2018-05-18T00:26:44","modified_gmt":"2018-05-18T00:26:44","slug":"review-skinless-savagery","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.surrealresolution.com\/index.php\/2018\/05\/18\/review-skinless-savagery\/","title":{"rendered":"Review: Skinless &#8211; Savagery"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>New York death metallers Skinless are back. The last time we heard from this band was in 2015 with <em>Only The Ruthless Remain<\/em>, which marked the end of an eight year gap between new material. Thankfully, the group has not made us wait that long for another set of gritty nasty tunes, as they have now bestowed us with their newest full-length album, <em>Savagery<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"embed-youtube\" style=\"text-align:center; display: block;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"youtube-player\" width=\"747\" height=\"421\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/NwvZAgpkM20?version=3&#038;rel=1&#038;showsearch=0&#038;showinfo=1&#038;iv_load_policy=1&#038;fs=1&#038;hl=en-US&#038;autohide=2&#038;wmode=transparent\" allowfullscreen=\"true\" style=\"border:0;\" sandbox=\"allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-popups allow-presentation allow-popups-to-escape-sandbox\"><\/iframe><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Skinless are a prime example of a band where what you see is what you get. The album art is a particularly dingy piece of work that showcases sinewy flesh hanging off of a skull with no eyes. This paves the way for the opening title track to slam the viewer with incredibly meaty guitar chugs, huge slamming drum grooves, and Sherwood Webber\u2019s deep intense vocals reverberating above the savage (pun completely intended) audio storm beneath. There\u2019s some back and forth between these grooves and some more blastbeat-heavy segments, and some pretty solid guitar solo work in there. The album continues on this path through each of its tracks.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSiege Engine\u201d ramps up the speed while maintaining a triplet groove in the double bass work and booming guitar chugs, mixing in plenty of tremolo riffs and leaving room for a massive stomping bridge in the middle. \u201cExacting Revenge\u201d shows off a lot of tight musical chemistry. Another song that\u2019s not lacking in grooves, the guitars chug in perfect rhythm with the hard-hitting double bass drum patterns, and there\u2019s some dynamic sections in the middle where the guitars bounce between high-and-low ends along with plenty of harmonizing tremolo work. When the album backs off into slower territory, we get tracks like \u201cMedieval\u201d with its deliberately slow and evil intro where the ride cymbal hits and creepy guitar leads create a sense of anticipation. This leads into some of the slowest most trudging instrumental work on the album that never lets up, enveloping the listener in an ominous atmosphere even when the song picks up the tempo a little bit.<\/p>\n<p>The record\u2019s strongest suit lies in its excellent production. The album\u2019s songwriting veers quite between aggressive gnarled beats and more doom-like ominous sections, There are even songs like \u201cReversal of Fortune\u201d and \u201cCruel Blade of the Guillotine\u201d that feature prominent clean guitar passages that feel more in the vain of classic Metallica than anything else. Throughout all of these, the instrumental tones always sound absolutely massive. The slamming riffs and drum beats are massive enough to create walls of atmosphere but also have just enough clarity to them to emphasize the impact, and the doomier parts saturated the music with a particularly hazy vibe.<\/p>\n<p>While there is much to like about the record, it can be hard to get into for the uninitiated. This is chiefly because at the end of the day, <em>Savagery<\/em> is, for lack of a better term, just another Skinless record. It\u2019s not an album that wildly varies up convention in the grand scheme of things, and apart from some of the clean breaks in a couple of aforementioned songs, it can feel like you\u2019re listening to the same 2 or 3 songs repeatedly across 37 minutes. Despite this gripe, those who are inclined to give the record a listen will find quite a bit to enjoy. It may only have one or two flavors to its songwriting, but those are pretty damn good flavors for those who have the taste for it, and if nothing else, <em>Savagery<\/em> delivers just that and proves that Skinless are men of their word.<\/p>\n<p><strong><br \/>\n<\/strong><strong><em>Final verdict:\u00a0<\/em><\/strong><em>stream it. Skinless deliver another solid set of no-nonsense death metal jams on Savagery.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Savagery<\/em>\u00a0<em>is available from Relapse Records on CD, vinyl, digital download, and streaming services. Check out Skinless on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/Skinless\/\">Facebook<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/skinlessband?lang=en\">Twitter<\/a>, and <a href=\"https:\/\/skinless.bandcamp.com\/\">Bandcamp<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>[Note: a copy of the album was provided by Relapse Records for the purpose of this review.]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"New York death metallers Skinless are back. The last time we heard from this band was in 2015 with Only The Ruthless Remain, \n<a class=\"moretag\" href=\"https:\/\/www.surrealresolution.com\/index.php\/2018\/05\/18\/review-skinless-savagery\/\"> [...]<\/a>","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":5212,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":[],"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","yasr_overall_rating":3,"yasr_post_is_review":"","yasr_auto_insert_disabled":"","yasr_review_type":"Product","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[12],"tags":[473,463,921,922,920],"class_list":["post-5211","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-music","tag-death-metal","tag-relapse-records","tag-savagery","tag-savagery-album-review","tag-skinless"],"yasr_visitor_votes":{"stars_attributes":{"read_only":false,"span_bottom":false},"number_of_votes":0,"sum_votes":0},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8GYHU-1m3","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.surrealresolution.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/Savagery-review-thumbnail.png?fit=1152%2C720&ssl=1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.surrealresolution.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5211","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.surrealresolution.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.surrealresolution.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.surrealresolution.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.surrealresolution.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5211"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.surrealresolution.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5211\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5214,"href":"https:\/\/www.surrealresolution.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5211\/revisions\/5214"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.surrealresolution.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5212"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.surrealresolution.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5211"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.surrealresolution.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5211"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.surrealresolution.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5211"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}