Skinless
Trample The Weak, Hurdle The Dead

That Cronos was a slacker is known to all De Baser users (the De Users); the man who responds to this nickname, in fact, writes occasionally and rains down his reviews on us with the implication "Pearls before swine…". Although he had listened to "Trample The Weak, Hurdle The Dead" long before me, he preferred to laze around rather than review it, so the task falls into my hands; and this wouldn't make me so angry if I didn't have to speak badly about what was one of my favorite bands, certainly the author of an album that is directly in my Top Five ("Foreshadowing Our Demise").

So, thanks to Cronos, I will once again have to give an impartial rating to a band towards which I am now very partial. Skinless; that is to say four guys from New York raised on bread and Agnostic Front, who then became disciples of fellow citizens Immolation and Dying Fetus, and eventually transformed into one of the most promising American Brutal Death realities. It was 1998 when they released the valid debut album "Progressions Toward Evil" and it was 2001 when I knelt before "Foreshadowing Our Demise" considering them the best Death band in existence (I still knew too little). It was 2003 when my blood began to boil due to their sensational turnaround that took them from being champions of sinister emotions to being just any macabre name in a Mail Order list. With "From Sacrifice To Survival" they disappointed me quite a bit, but they left me hope that it was a transitional period (but I have already elaborated on that elsewhere). It was 2005 and already the dark premonition (mp®) of the new album was starting to unsettle me; but it’s this year, July to be precise, that the ominous confirmation arrived: the old Skinless are no more, the sad announcement is made by Tepes and all the aficionados.

"Sad but true" (I take this opportunity to celebrate the memory of another great defunct band), the past times are gone, and the hopes of a great return are vanishing more and more. In short, we knew Skinless for their atmospheres, for Sherwood Webber's voice, for that oppressive riffing, for their dark humor, for their resigned depression. And now? Now there remains a band completely similar to "a cat without a paw trying to bury a turd in a frozen meadow" (a giant garden gnome is up for grabs for this one); in "Trample The Weak Hurdle The Dead", Skinless minimally try to recover something of their glorious past, a few riffs, some Stop and Go, and even their old drummer (Bob "The Big Gun" Beaulac), but the only thing they manage to do is leave a fan like me mediocrely and definitively dispirited. I'll be clear, if this is their attempt, I preferred it when they didn’t try, and I could believe that at any moment they could spit out an album like their first two.

This is their epitaph, not only that, they even signed it! They showed everyone that, even if they wanted to, they are no longer capable of reproducing something similar to their initial works. The guitar parts, except in particular cases like "Deviation Will Not Be Tolerated", are very similar to those of the previous work, meaning completely devoid of bite and rather boring; Noah Carpenter's six strings now vibrate without that touch of hatred that made them unique (or nearly so) in this genre. But the real alarm signal is that the songs communicate nothing, they leave you there like moss contemplating the transformation of Skinless into some anonymous, good Death Metallers. The drummer, once renowned for his not overly technical but very personal extravagances, seems not to have even stepped in for his detached predecessor; his drumming is meticulous, very precise and more technical but this, contrary to what one might believe, does nothing but banalize the proposal and make it the same as many others. Blast Beats executed at high speeds, perfect rolls and some of his trademark grace notes only make his performance lackluster. The singer, as capable as he is, makes you miss the aforementioned Webber by sporting a second-rate and ordinary growling: the tone of the (metaphorically) departed above remains a hapax.

And the bassist? Well, maybe he is the only one who saves himself by repeating the breaks he has been doing for the past ten years without harming anyone. Not to mention the lyrics, generally on a war theme (towards which they take an ambiguous attitude anyway) and inevitably flat and not at all evocative. At this point, I wonder why they took a three-year break before releasing an album that has nothing new and draws heavily from "From Sacrifice To Survival" scratching a little from their best material. Maybe to readjust the Line Up? Or maybe for a promotional tour of this stuff? Certainly, they haven't spent this time composing the songs given that there are seven (no, not eight, "Wicked World" is a useless Black Sabbath cover) and they don't reserve any particular shocks to the traditional way of doing Brutal Death.

And now I go back to blaming Cronos for not reviewing this damn cd because, despite the rating being objective, the review says something else entirely and now I’ll have created a huge mess in the head of those who read. The truth is that "Trample The Weak, Hurdle The Dead" is not just a sufficient album, but compared to what this band is worth, it is lowly: anyone who did not know them and listened to it would think that they understand little of Death, but I use another graduated scale. The rating refers to the album's module, but the review is related to their discography: this album is good for neophytes, definitely insufficient for anyone who ever loved the first Skinless.

And now, any complaint you have to make, make it to Cronos (just kidding… more or less…)