ALBUM REVIEW: The Entombment of Chaos – Skeletal Remains

There’s just no getting around the fact that SKELETAL REMAINS are just so god-damn sick. They may lack the genre-bending, psychedelia of BLOOD INCANTATION, the new-age stomp of GATECREEPER, or the dissonance of TOMB MOLD, but it’s a cold, hard fact of life that there are few bands around at the moment playing classic, old-school Tampa death metal as well as SKELETAL REMAINS – the classic, old-school Tampa death metal bands that forged the genre included. After the whirlwind success of their third record and Century Media Records debut Devouring Mortality in 2018, Chris Monroy and co are back with their strongest record to date – The Entombment of Chaos.

After the synth-heavy, spacey introductory Cosmic Chasm, SKELETAL REMAINS waste no time in slamming down the gauntlet with single tracks Illusive Divinity and Congregation of Flesh. Both are bruisers through and through, offering grooves upon grooves, riffs upon riffs and brutality in spades. The all-too-brief lead breaks found across both tracks, though more heavily in Congregation of Flesh offer a lovely touch of chaos to the general vibe and give front man Monroy a chance to flex his soloing chops. Three tracks in, so far, so brutal.

Driving The Entombment of Chaos to its midway point and into Side B, Synthetic Impulse offers a viscous blast of up-tempo ferocity before album highlight and pseudo-title track Tombs of Chaos stomps its way in with all the subtlety of a rampaging mammoth. Immediately memorable vocal patterns, heavy use of higher pitched vocals that break up the mid-range barks wonderfully and solo truly exquisite soloing from Monroy round of Tombs of Chaos as a clear stand out point in the record. The interludial Enshrined in Agony offers a welcome break from the sonic hammering SKELETAL REMAINS have delivered thus far – though the atmosphere it creates is unsettled at best – before Dissecstasy roars to life and sees The Entombment of Chaos well into its second half in a crushing fashion. Then, just like that, we’re on the home straight.

And from this point on, you better hold onto your beer and keep arms, legs and sizeable joints inside the ride at all times because SKELETAL REMAINS don’t take their foot off the pedal from here so much as they ram it through the floor. Torturous Ways to Obliteration is just pure mayhem, a grinding assault on the senses that may just take the cake as the band’s most aurally eviscerating track in their discography to date, yet somehow remarkably catchy with its duelling guitar solos and the excellent vocal delivery from Monroy. The six minute rager Eternal Hatred offers no more peace, its fade-in introduction signalling something of epic proportions is oncoming – and it doesn’t disappoint. Where Torturous Ways to Obliteration was chaotic, Eternal Hatred is a doom-laden crusher, the barrage of riffs destined to leave all but the most stalwart necks in tatters, while Unfurling the Casket brings The Entombment of Chaos to a glorious end, the leads and melodies giving a sense of grandiosity to the otherwise relentless battery.

That is, unless you happen to pick up the limited edition version of The Entombment of Chaos – and if you haven’t, you’ve made a grave error in judgement. On this version of the record, SKELETAL REMAINS close things off with an absolutely stunning cover of DISINCARNATE‘s Stench of Paradise Burning, from Dreams of a Carrion Kind. It’s important to note, here, that at no point across The Entombment of Chaos do the Californians deliver anything less than excellence in their original work. However, this cover is something else. Here, Monroy and co. perfectly capture the atmosphere and feel of the DISINCARNATE classic, but their signature SKELETAL REMAINS twist brings the song kicking and screaming into the 21st century. Buzz-saw riffing, grinding brutality, and grooves heavy enough to crush your bones to dust under the atmospheric pressure alone, the trio have outdone themselves here – not to mention the excellent guest appearance from Simon Duson of CARNATION.

Listening to The Entombment of Chaos, you can’t help but feel that had Monroy been born a generation earlier, SKELETAL REMAINS would have been hailed as one of the pioneers of death metal. The Entombment of Chaos is raw, nasty and brutalising, perfectly embodying the atmosphere and aggression of the early death metal scene without sounding derivative at any point. Sure, it doesn’t reinvent the genre, but to untrained ears there’s nothing stopping this from being hailed a genre classic like Altars of Madness or Slowly We Rot – with the exception of a few decades. Once again SKELETAL REMAINS prove that they are one of the most exciting bands in the genre at the moment – sleep on them at your peril.

Rating: 9/10

The Entombment of Chaos is set for release September 11th via Century Media Records. 

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