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SKELETAL REMAINS
Fragments Of The Ageless

Century Media (2024)
Rating: 7.5/10

I love Skeletal Remains but I don’t like the cover artwork for this, their fifth full-length studio album. So, now I’ve got that out of the way let’s move on to what is essentially a solid follow-up to 2020’s The Entombment Of Chaos.

The production, thanks to Dan Swanö, is sublime and allows those riffs and drums to pulverise, particularly on favourites ‘Verminous Embodiment’ and the seemingly vast ‘Unmerciful’ that ripples with staggering axe work. The album does have a tendency to drift towards recognisable Morbid Angel territory, especially on ‘Forever In Sufferance’ and ‘To Conquer The Devout’, and there are nods towards Death legend Chuck Schuldiner in some of those solos. However, my big concern with this opus is a sense of the guys going through the motions, or at least playing safe even with sprigs of neo-classical axe work.

Considering how fast the death metal genre is moving and with the music getting heavier and weirder, I don’t want to see Skeletal Remains become that reliable meat n’ veg diet. The album is still quite the crushing force; just listen to ‘Void Of Despair’ or the opening charges of ‘Relentless Appetite’ where guitarist Chris Monroy growls “Copulate. Suffocate. Mutilate”.

This is a monstrous record, but that’s exactly what I expect from the Californian quartet… so basically there are no real surprises here. Fragments Of The Ageless will sit low down the pecking order of Skeletal Remains releases which is somewhat praise for the bands discography, but for their next album I expect a creative shift.

Neil Arnold

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