On paper, Skeletal Remains should be on top of the mountain for many a Death Metal connoisseur. All the parts are here, really: plenty of double-kick drums, blast beats and screaming lead guitars to go around. 

They’re even from California, and we all know how much of a gold mine the West Coast has been for extreme metal in the last four decades.

But most importantly, with latest LP Fragments of the Ageless (Century Media Records), Skeletal Remains has the Death Metal lingo down pat.

What does Fragments of the Ageless mean? What does it pertain to? Hell, if I fucking know. But in the world of Metal, it fits right in with albums named Cosmogenesis or Whoracle. 

And this heavy thesaurus theory can also be observed on song titles like “Verminous Embodiment” and “Cybernetic Harvest.” 

So far so good, right? But how’s the playing? Well, plenty of ripping Death Metal to be mined here on tracks like “Unmerciful” and “Forever in Sufferance”. Guitarists Mike De La O and Chris Monroy are excellently adept particularly when it comes to lead duties and that’s rapidly apparent from the opening as “Relentless Appetite” sets the table with a tandem of fretboard exercises. 

And while the instrumentation can be top-notch, Skeletal Remains’ nagging issue seems to be practicing restraint. Most numbers on Fragments of the Ageless would benefit from trimming a minute or two, particularly the mostly brutal “Unmerciful” which loses steam by approaching eight minutes in length. Again, with the guitar playing being so strong – and stop me if you’ve heard this one from me before – do we need such an emphasis on vocals here? By spending so much time on lyrics, it forces the listener to focus on the words only to find out it’s boilerplate Death Metal verbiage.

With the right producer and set of songs, Skeletal Remains can ascend the extreme pecking order. 

Here’s to hoping it’ll happen soon. 

Buy the album here:
https://skeletalremains.lnk.to/FragmentsOfTheAgeless

7 / 10
HANS LOPEZ