{"id":102607,"date":"2024-03-08T00:00:18","date_gmt":"2024-03-08T00:00:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/?p=102607"},"modified":"2024-03-14T15:06:44","modified_gmt":"2024-03-14T15:06:44","slug":"album-review-skeletal-remains-fragments-of-the-ageless","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/album-review-skeletal-remains-fragments-of-the-ageless\/","title":{"rendered":"SKELETAL REMAINS – Fragments Of The Ageless (2024) | Album \/ EP Reviews @ Metal Forces Magazine"},"content":{"rendered":"

SKELETAL REMAINS
Fragments Of The Ageless<\/strong><\/span>
\n\"\"
\nCentury Media (2024)<\/span>
Rating: 7.5\/10<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

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I love Skeletal Remains but I don\u2019t like the cover artwork for this, their fifth full-length studio album. So, now I\u2019ve got that out of the way let\u2019s move on to what is essentially a solid follow-up to 2020\u2019s The Entombment Of Chaos<\/em>.<\/p>\n

The production, thanks to Dan Swan\u00f6, is sublime and allows those riffs and drums to pulverise, particularly on favourites \u2018Verminous Embodiment\u2019 and the seemingly vast \u2018Unmerciful\u2019 that ripples with staggering axe work. The album does have a tendency to drift towards recognisable Morbid Angel territory, especially on \u2018Forever In Sufferance\u2019 and \u2018To Conquer The Devout\u2019, 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.<\/p>\n

Considering how fast the death metal genre is moving and with the music getting heavier and weirder, I don\u2019t want to see Skeletal Remains become that reliable meat n\u2019 veg diet. The album is still quite the crushing force; just listen to \u2018Void Of Despair\u2019 or the opening charges of \u2018Relentless Appetite\u2019 where guitarist Chris Monroy growls \u201cCopulate. Suffocate. Mutilate\u201d<\/em>.<\/p>\n

This is a monstrous record, but that\u2019s exactly what I expect from the Californian quartet… so basically there are no real surprises here. Fragments Of The Ageless<\/em> 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.<\/p>\n

Neil Arnold<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

SKELETAL REMAINSFragments Of The Ageless Century Media (2024)Rating: 7.5\/10 I love Skeletal Remains but I don\u2019t like the cover artwork for this, their fifth full-length studio album. So, now I\u2019ve got that out of the way let\u2019s move on to what is essentially a solid follow-up to 2020\u2019s The Entombment Of Chaos. The production, thanks […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,3938],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-102607","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-album-ep-reviews","category-skeletal-remains"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102607","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=102607"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102607\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":102613,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102607\/revisions\/102613"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=102607"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=102607"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=102607"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}