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Very hard to get into, but has some good material and not a generic album for it's style.-
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| Excommunicated: Skeleton Key |
Black Metal, Death Metal
Underworld Records
August 15th, 2011
- The Abandonment of Hope - 2:07
- The Incorruptibles - 5:04
- Cry to Heaven - 6:40
- Minutes of the Corpse Trials - 4:03
- The Vatican Orgies - 4:27
- Christ's Sword - 7:31
- When Death Claims It's Most Righteous Dead - 4:00
- The Birth of Tragedy - 5:08
- Keys to the Kingdom of God - 3:50
- The Sum of Life's Pain - 3:23
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| Review Information |
Release length: 46:17
Review posted on August 15th, 2011
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| | Overall Score: 6.5/10 |
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| Discography |
Discography covers all information available up to day of review and is updated if future albums are reviewed. |
| Full-Length(s): |
Skeleton Key (2011)
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| Compilation(s): |
Bone Fragments EP & In the Shadow of the Cross Demo
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| Review |
Excommunicated is a Louisianna-based Death and Black Metal act. While the group is still more of an underground band, signing to a lesser known label and not being too well known outside a compilation of an EP and Demo recording made available digitally at one point, their lyrical concept is one that will really have fans of these styles taking notice a little more. While the concept may not be the most original or unique, songs about the Christian church's dark history are always interesting to hear, especially if they happen to be based on truth and not just the fantasy of the writer. Either way, it makes for an intriguing atmosphere prior to even hearing their material. Skeleton key marks the band's debut full-length recording, but will it be something that really takeshold of the lyrical concept?
Skeleton Key isn't all that different from many of today's Black/Death Metal acts. Vocally and musically, it has some similarities to Behemoth and the legions of clones of that band's sound and style. However, Excommunicated does have a bit of originality to their material. The quality to Skeleton Key is a little more raw and bass heavy, with deeper Black Metal-esque riffs and distortions that go hand in hand with the bass guitars. The bass kicks have a loud thud to them that makes them pretty clear in the mix, as well as pretty powerful, and the cymbols sound a bit haunting against some strong snares. Vocally, the album does have that more stern and commanding vocal approach similar to Behemoth, but at the same time the band does try to have a clear distinction between gutturals and rhaspier, slightly higher pitched growls. This is shown right away on "The Incorruptibles" which takes that deeper guttural sound as the main vocal performance, and behind it that rhaspier approach backs it up. The rawer quality of the music really captures a hopeless and bludgeoning atmosphere to the song, though the introduction track "The Abandonment of Hope" really does not do much to set up that atmosphere for the following track or any others, instead kind of giving a slightly gothic-era feeling through guitars and effects that make them sound a bit like keyboards at times. The sudden fade out in this track then kick in of a louder guitar for a solo also seems really odd and hurts the track due to how random and unnatural it sounds. This also happens again at the end to close the track, just fading out very awkwardly.
The fading ends up being one of the faults to the album. Aside the odd fading ideas in "The Abandonment of Hope", it happens at the closing of "The Incorruptibles" as well, except when it fades it happens really quick, but then you hear the guitars playing for a few seconds at that really low volume for no reason, as if everything was silenced and the fade didn't fully work on the guitars, stopping before it would go to silent. Unfortunately that's not the limit with the problems on the album. While "The Incorruptibles" weaves a nice desolate Death Metal vibe, the track "Cry to Heaven", which starts off with what sounds like an audio sample of an opera record, feels completely different in substance. At first one would immediately think the band is going into a more Black Metal direction, but instead seems to take on a Melodic Death Metal approach at times similar to Amon Amarth. The song is far from bad, though the more chaotic screaming vocals sound really out there and kind of mess with the atmosphere, and the gutturals are deep and simply sound intimidating, helping the really out of place music sound even more awkward while violating the established atmospheres, which was also done in "The Incorruptibles". And again, this track fades out awkwardly and leaves a brief period where the drums still remain and no other music is there to back them up, then they just stop.
Excommunicated can't seem to grasp what it is they want to do musically, or the atmosphere they want to establish. After "The Incorruptibles", it seems the band takes on the dueling vocal ideas bands like Impaled use a little more, or the atmosphere varies havily between a commanding and crushing sound to more Melodic Death Metal sound and atmosphere, to a far more chaotic approach like with "The Vatican Orgies". Granted with a song about orgies it's hard to sound commanding or soul crushing, but it's just hard to stay interested throughout the release with the constantly shifting sounds and atmospheres. This is really frustrating since the music the band plays typically is pretty good, though sometimes not the most spectacular. "The Vatican Orgies" is not the most amazing song off the album, but it's furious pace really stands out nicely despite the more erratic screaming vocals not really fitting the mold of the song despite it's more off-the-wall lyrical nature. However, this is the first song on the album to actually end with a proper fade out, allowing the bass to ring out and nothing else by the end of the song, and it feels natural for the most part. But, once again we go back to a more crushing atmosphere similar to "The Incorruptibles", which is really where Excommunicated shines through on this album. There's also the song "The Birth of Tragedy", which is a decent track that seems like an instrumental outside some rough spoken word narration. There is a moment of what sounds like off-drumming shortly after the half way mark, and the atmosphere again is different, being more of a creepier vibe then anything else. It does work well when it bleeds seemlessly into the heavier, more sinister "Keys to the Kingdom of God", which also goes into "The Sum of Life's Pain" to end the album on a slower, haunting note, but these end up being one of the very few moments of atmospheric and musical consistancy in this release.
Skeleton Key is not really a bad album, it's just that the band doesn't know what direction to it, and that's the most infuriating part of the album. There's some good tracks here, but the album barely ever feels consistant outside of "The Birth of Tragedy" into "The Sum of Life's Pain". Other then that, you won't know what you're listening to half the time, or know how to react to the music. Excommunicated have some good ideas presented here, but the band definitely needs to focus on what they want to do with their material and refine it to a lot more then what is here. The album shows promise, but it's faults give a bit of an amateurish sound to the release that is rather disheartening. It's not an album worth running out to buy, as there's not much here that really leaves a lasting impression, and while it has some enjoyable original concepts to the music, it's just really hard to get into. If you're at all curious, the album is worth sampling before you go ahead and purchase the release, no matter how big of a Death Metal and/or Black Metal fan you are.
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Digital review copy of this release provided by:
Underworld Records
via Clawhammer PR.
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