Eat Thrash

Take a wild guess as to what genre this is. Here’s a hint; it might or might not be in the album title. Skulled are a group of German thrashers that put out their second effort just shy of two years ago, titled Eat Thrash. Combine the goofy and barbaric nature of the crossover scene with the raw feel and intense aggression of the Teutonic thrash movement, and you’ve got this compound of a metal disc.

Amazingly, this is not super consistent. Most would immediately see this and guess how one sided it is just by looking at it, but that’s actually not the case. Only the first third or so of this utilizes the crazy speed and chaotic delivery of many a crossover band, with “Death, Destruction” being the easiest track to pin this to. As soon as you reach “Guts On Wheels,” hints of melody begin creeping in, giving the overall sound on these numbers beefier structure.

Bassy passages and rather fierce sounding chugs are woven into this later into the album, most notably with the slamming riff style and pounding drums that carry “Protect & Sever.” Randomly, the band will then jump to songs that take on humor driven subject matter, like “Kate Mosh” and “Satan In My Drink.” That’s all well and good, but the inconsistency on Eat Thrash is just a bit much to overlook due to the lack of hooks. If the general songwriting had more to it, this would be easily forgivable.

For the most part, Skulled have a pretty good idea of how to drop the fun with the fury. There are some tunes with good structure, some with silliness, and some that are downright mean to the last drop. If this had a smoother flow and perhaps some sharper hooks, this would have been stellar; some improvement in songwriting development would do the trick.

Originally written for Indy Metal Vault

The fear of the dreaded sophomore slump has led many a band, be they large or small in level of influence, to trek down the treacherous path of reinventing oneself with often disastrous results. Be this as it may, for every few bands that wind up alienating the majority of their base and either folding tent or doing a major mea culpa on any subsequent outings, there is one that manages to pull it off by either finding something even better than their original format or adapting their existing template to the point that it is very different yet still recognizable. Germany's young thrash act Skulled opted for the latter of these two positive albums following a respectable, albeit safe debut in the modern Exodus meets Testament style in <chaos Through Order by throwing in a massive dose of older thrash trappings while still displaying a notably current and heavy-hitting approach in line with the current production practices of the Bay Area sound. Sporting an overtly tongue-in-cheek visual of a denim-vested kid giving a 38 hoagie the old deep throat, Eat Thrash presents an interesting and high-impact take on the pizza and beer approach to thrash where said comedic elements can co-exist with the political sensibilities of crossover.

From the very onset, it is very clear that this album is far more interested in wrecking necks via excessive tempos and blinding riffs than inspiring deep reflection with an array of deep melodic twists and turns. Individually the songs tend to be a bit shorter in scope, and the resulting album feels a bit more inclined towards the overall brevity of a 1986 album rather than the epic scope of a 1991 quasi-progressive one. However, the most prominent shift in sound comes in the approach of vocalist Jan Hölscher, who still has a vocal inflection reminiscent of Chuck Billy, but more so the old 1987 version that had a notably nimbler and expansive high range and a less overtly throaty delivery, which fits in perfectly with the proliferation of gang shouts and generally punk-infused sensibilities that permeate the vast majority of these songs. Likewise, the bass work of Lennart Ebbers has taken on a more prominent role, delivering up a raunchy set of brief solo segments during the introductory and breakdown points of a number of songs latter part of the album that comes off as slightly funky, though maybe a tad less so than the 90s output of Suicidal Tendencies when Robert Trujillo was banging on the 4-string.

It can't be understated that for anyone who encountered this band through their debut album, that the changes present here are about as abruptly presented as possible. The gang-chorus happy opener "Death, Destruction" has all the speed and punk vibes of a Municipal Waste song, and about the only thing keeping it from morphing into such are those occasions where Jan's vocals chime in with that youthful, Billy meets Hetfield vibe. There is still a riff-oriented center to things here that points to the band's Testament influences, namely during the more moderately fast "Guts On Wheels" and the chugging monster of a speeder "Kate Mosh", but this is more along the lines of The New Order than The Ritual given the degree of speed and busyness. They make an occasion to slow things up to a grinding crawl with a slight early 90s Slayer vibe on "Shell Shock", but the overruling trend of this album is to maximize the speed factor, and even the aforementioned slower and longer song finds itself cruising at a faster pace than the average offering off the previous album, let alone the frenzied crushers like "R.a.w." and "Satan In My Drink" that remind of Nuclear Assault's heyday in the mid-80s.

Though maybe a tad short of a stylistic 180, Skulled definitely pulled off one of the more blatant reinventions that any thrash metal band in recent years has attempted. This is a bit more along the lines of where the general revival sound has been since the mid 2000s, though it does manage to avoid being an all out speed fest at every single juncture. Thrash metal is not necessarily known for being a nuanced sub-genre, but for all of the mosh pit oriented fodder that dominates this 40 minute sonic excursion, there is the occasional atmospheric gimmick such as a haunting acoustic intro like the one that adorns "Riot Of The Rats" that was likewise occasionally employed by the original masters of the craft yet largely avoided by the retro-thrash acts of late. Musically it proves to be a fairly serious affair, in spite of the cover art implying that anything but that is to be expected, and the musicians in congress carry the necessary versatility to suggest that a few more surprises may lay in store on future outings. Skulled is definitely going to be one of those bands to watch as the current decade comes to a close and the masses begin to expect something different out of this style.