Skeletal Earth – Dē.ĕv’ṓ.lū’shŭn [Re-Release]

In 1994 Skeletal Earth returned once again with a full-length album, which turned out to be their last one as they threw in the towel shortly after the release of ‘Dē.ĕv’ṓ.lū’shŭn’. It also marks the third and final chapter of VIC Records’ Skeletal Earth re-releasing campaign.

Musically the band pushed further the direction they took on their ‘Dreighphuck’ EP from a year earlier, disbanding the Dead Kennedys influences even more and opting for a more firmly sounding riffs. You can even argue that the album has a certain Grindcore feel to it, not as rough, aggressive or frantic as your average Carcass, Terrorizer or Repulsion record, but it definitely nears Death Metal era Napalm Death. Needless to say Skeletal Earth never reaches the level of those genre legends, but at least it has an air of slight grindcorian wildness and even has a similar guitar tone. In addition to the meatier sounding guitars, the overall production, courtesy of, again, Scott Burns, has much more of a crunch than its predecessor. And while the title of the album suggests otherwise, the album has quite a lot of a 90’s feel to it, I wouldn’t label it ‘modern’, but especially due to the bands’ quirkiness, it has a bit of that 90’s creativity. Fortunately, though, most of the silly billy and otherwise “funny” elements are discarded as well, making ‘Dē.ĕv’ṓ.lū’shŭn’ overall a little less tiresome than their “classic” debut album ‘Eurlogy For A Dying Fetus’.

Just as with that first album of Skeletal Earth, I am still quite flabbergasted that this was actually re-released. It wasn’t all that special when the bands’ recordings were originally released to begin with, and, besides, you can quite easily obtain the original releases for less than your average McDonalds menu.