(written by Islander)
When you name your metal band Skumstrike you’re not trying to hide the ball. You’re sending a very clear signal that the music will make no pretenses to artistic refinement, thought-provoking intellect, or avant-garde experimentation. Instead, it brandishes the idea of leaping from the gutter, unclean to the bone, and attacking with no holds barred. But what kind of musical attack do they launch?
This Montreal trio gave us a ferocious idea of their attack with a 2022 debut album named Deadly Intrusions (well-named, that one), and now they’re reinforcing those deadly impressions with a second album titled Flawless Intrigue from Hell, which will be released by their new label Dying Victims Productions on September 25th.
As vividly described in the PR materials, the new music “combines a lethal dose of speed metal with the gunpowder roar of thrash and death metal,” “cross-contaminating the wild fury of Japan’s Sabbat with the abandon of early Slayer and Bathory“.
Those aren’t empty words, as you’ll discover for yourselves through our premiere of the album’s second single, “Mastery of Sin“.
Flames leap from the album’s cover art, and they immediately leap from “Mastery of Sin” too. In piercing tones the riffing wildly roils, ecstatically leaps, and brazenly blares. As if that weren’t sufficient to get a listener’s blood rushing, Skumstrike drive the song with a wide-open throttle, propelling it with thunderously hammering drums and brutishly lustful low frequencies.
On top of that, Skumstrike’s vocalist expels the violent lyrics in raging screams that add the sound of white-hot cutting knives to the song’s blazing and bludgeoning assault. The fleet-fingered riffing jubilantly whirls and savagely swarms; the drums convulse as well as hammer; and a guitar solo creates a searing freaked-out convulsion of its own to surge the song even further past the red-line at the end.
So here you go — gulp some air and hit the play button below:
SKUMSTRIKE Line-up:
Olcadóir – Six string slaughter
Zak – Ceaseless battery, ‘kills and leads
GraveDecorator – Low-end bulldozer
Flawless Intrigue from Hell was recorded by Spectral Wound mastermind Patrick McDowell, and it features possessed, skeletal artwork courtesy of Chris Kiesling of Misanthropic-Art (artist for Mortuary Drape, Hooded Menace, Grave Infestation, and many others).
Dying Victims will release the album on these formats: Regular edition black vinyl, with insert, poster, sticker, post card and download code; special edition on orange vinyl, with insert, poster, sticker, post card, download code and patch; and CD edition with sticker and obi.
Find pre-orders via the links below, and also get trampled, broiled, and poisoned by the previously released first single “Death Reckoning“.
PRE-ORDER:
https://www.dyingvictims.com
https://dyingvictimsproductions.bandcamp.com/album/flawless-intrigue-from-hell
SKUMSTRIKE:
https://skumstrike.bandcamp.com/album/deadly-intrusions
https://www.facebook.com/SKUMSTRIKE/