{"id":98773,"date":"2023-02-03T00:00:35","date_gmt":"2023-02-03T00:00:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/?p=98773"},"modified":"2023-04-03T15:07:46","modified_gmt":"2023-04-03T14:07:46","slug":"album-review-skull-the-great-descent-into-hell","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/album-review-skull-the-great-descent-into-hell\/","title":{"rendered":"SKULL – The Great Descent Into Hell (2023) | Album \/ EP Reviews @ Metal Forces Magazine"},"content":{"rendered":"

SKULL
The Great Descent Into Hell<\/strong><\/span>
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\nSelf-released (2023)<\/span>
Rating: 7.5\/10<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

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If you think of prolific acts within any genre it\u2019s very likely that the name Skull will not feature, and yet this one-man creation has been spouting out full-length albums like no tomorrow. In 2018 New Zealander Jeremy Giles released five albums under the moniker Skull – that\u2019s like a record every couple of months! And then in 2019 he must\u2019ve been busy elsewhere because only three more albums were issued. Since then another seven have been released, including this latest one.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t know if this guy is some sort of obsessive but damn, prolific just isn\u2019t the word, and it is half-decent stuff too. I guess you could call this melodic death metal with thrashy insertions; Jeremy\u2019s vocals have an almost primitive tone, and he\u2019s no stranger to a blazing solo either which frequently fan the flames of what is raucous death metal.<\/p>\n

There is always an element of the unorthodox about Giles\u2019 work. For instance, he pulls off a symphonic solo on the title track that isn\u2019t exactly a world away from Yngwie J. Malmsteen \u2013 although obviously not on the same level. Even so, it makes for a very interesting listen, particularly on tracks such as \u2018The Creeper Beyond The Deadfall\u2019 with its Bay Area chugging and the hammering \u2018Deathless\u2019. Meanwhile, \u2018Drag Me To Hell\u2019 again has that surprising symphonic glide amidst the furnace.<\/p>\n

Jeremy\u2019s style is creative and compelling and you never know what he\u2019s going to pull out the bag next, and when one considers how much stuff he\u2019s put out in the space of a handful of years one can only be impressed by his dedication and maddening musicianship. I\u2019ve only heard a few of his older records so it\u2019s time to go back through the entire discography\u2026 I\u2019ll be back in a few years!.<\/p>\n

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

SKULLThe Great Descent Into Hell Self-released (2023)Rating: 7.5\/10 If you think of prolific acts within any genre it\u2019s very likely that the name Skull will not feature, and yet this one-man creation has been spouting out full-length albums like no tomorrow. In 2018 New Zealander Jeremy Giles released five albums under the moniker Skull – […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,5278],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-98773","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-album-ep-reviews","category-skull-new-zealand"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98773","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=98773"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98773\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":98777,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98773\/revisions\/98777"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=98773"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=98773"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=98773"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}