Reviewed this for MA with a score of 86. Thought I'd post it here, since apparently someone liked my last Skeletonwitch review.
Skeletonwitch established themselves with Beyond The Permafrost as a badass mixture of thrash and melodic death metal. Holding themselves to 2-3 minute songs, they thrashed like mad and still had time for the odd epic melody or wild solo. To me it was awesome, but many were turned off by the minimal death metal influences and sometimes-happy melodies, which may not have been helped by the extremely clean production. Well, intentionally or not, Skeletonwitch have addressed all those concerns with Breathing the Fire, and its a better album for it.
The sound here is about 70% thrash metal, and I mean real thrash; fast, headbanging riffs and pounding drumbeats. Whats left is about 10% pure death metal, with crushing, dissonant riffs backed by blastbeats, and 20% melodic black metal that Dissection would be proud of. The real change is that where on BtP the riffs were generally fast pedaled melodies, here there are discreet sections of thrashing and melody. However, the fantastically tight songwriting lets these sections interweave seamlessly. The result is extremely organic songs that move between different tempos while remaining dark and violent at all times. The songs havent gotten any longer, either; the average song length is actually shorter here, but the songs never feel like theyre too short. The melodies and guitar solos are given ample time to develop, while the thrash bits benefit from being compressed into lightening fast, high-impact doses. There are points at which you might find yourself thinking that maybe some of these ideas should have been developed further into longer songs, but overall the 2-3 minute song works fantastically for Skeletonwitch. They also tend to mix things up a bit to keep it fresh; one song may be more melodic and then followed by a total thrasher, although every song contains bit of each. Clearly they gave at least some thought to the track listing here. Indeed, lots of thought clearly went into the entire affair; the songs are, as on BtP, stripped down completely of any fluff, the solos are again well-composed and extremely fitting, and the vocal lines fit perfectly. Another thing that definitely deserves mention is the production. The guitar tone this time around is thicker and heavier, although it lacks bite, which the thrash sections suffer a bit for. The overall sound of the album is much rawer and darker (although it is actually quite clear), and at points some atmosphere definitely develops. This helps a great deal to give some credibility to the lyrics, which are all about fire and murder and Satan. The one downside to the production is that the drums are a bit quiet, which hurts the thrash parts again. Rounding things out, the vocals are top notch, mostly excellent mid-range rasps with deep growls here and there. The vocalist sounds pissed-off enough to carry off the lyrics, which are often a bit silly.
Overall, this is a great album recommended for people who love both Reign in Blood and Storm of the Lights Bane and think it would be awesome if someone tried to combine them. Only that makes it sound more badass than it is, because both of the aforementioned albums are way better. The one downside to the short song lengths is that none of them really feel weighty or terrible memorable. Skeletonwitch dont shoot for the moon, but they blow a low-flying satellite out of orbit. I gave this an 86 because I gave the last one an 85 and I wanted to indicate it was a better album; however, I don't want to give it much higher because I don't feel it's ambitious enough. If you don't give a shit about that and just want to bang your head, add about 10 points.
Skeletonwitch established themselves with Beyond The Permafrost as a badass mixture of thrash and melodic death metal. Holding themselves to 2-3 minute songs, they thrashed like mad and still had time for the odd epic melody or wild solo. To me it was awesome, but many were turned off by the minimal death metal influences and sometimes-happy melodies, which may not have been helped by the extremely clean production. Well, intentionally or not, Skeletonwitch have addressed all those concerns with Breathing the Fire, and its a better album for it.
The sound here is about 70% thrash metal, and I mean real thrash; fast, headbanging riffs and pounding drumbeats. Whats left is about 10% pure death metal, with crushing, dissonant riffs backed by blastbeats, and 20% melodic black metal that Dissection would be proud of. The real change is that where on BtP the riffs were generally fast pedaled melodies, here there are discreet sections of thrashing and melody. However, the fantastically tight songwriting lets these sections interweave seamlessly. The result is extremely organic songs that move between different tempos while remaining dark and violent at all times. The songs havent gotten any longer, either; the average song length is actually shorter here, but the songs never feel like theyre too short. The melodies and guitar solos are given ample time to develop, while the thrash bits benefit from being compressed into lightening fast, high-impact doses. There are points at which you might find yourself thinking that maybe some of these ideas should have been developed further into longer songs, but overall the 2-3 minute song works fantastically for Skeletonwitch. They also tend to mix things up a bit to keep it fresh; one song may be more melodic and then followed by a total thrasher, although every song contains bit of each. Clearly they gave at least some thought to the track listing here. Indeed, lots of thought clearly went into the entire affair; the songs are, as on BtP, stripped down completely of any fluff, the solos are again well-composed and extremely fitting, and the vocal lines fit perfectly. Another thing that definitely deserves mention is the production. The guitar tone this time around is thicker and heavier, although it lacks bite, which the thrash sections suffer a bit for. The overall sound of the album is much rawer and darker (although it is actually quite clear), and at points some atmosphere definitely develops. This helps a great deal to give some credibility to the lyrics, which are all about fire and murder and Satan. The one downside to the production is that the drums are a bit quiet, which hurts the thrash parts again. Rounding things out, the vocals are top notch, mostly excellent mid-range rasps with deep growls here and there. The vocalist sounds pissed-off enough to carry off the lyrics, which are often a bit silly.
Overall, this is a great album recommended for people who love both Reign in Blood and Storm of the Lights Bane and think it would be awesome if someone tried to combine them. Only that makes it sound more badass than it is, because both of the aforementioned albums are way better. The one downside to the short song lengths is that none of them really feel weighty or terrible memorable. Skeletonwitch dont shoot for the moon, but they blow a low-flying satellite out of orbit. I gave this an 86 because I gave the last one an 85 and I wanted to indicate it was a better album; however, I don't want to give it much higher because I don't feel it's ambitious enough. If you don't give a shit about that and just want to bang your head, add about 10 points.
