Band: Skeletonwitch
Title: Forever Abomination
Label: Prosthetic Records
Release date: October 11th 2011
Review: CD

Two years after the release of Breathing The Fire (which did hit the Billboard Charts at 151), this Athens-based (no, not the capital of Greece, yet the Ohioan city) quintet (Evan Linger-b, Scott Hedrick-g, Dustin Boltjes-d (newly recruited, ex-Demiricious), Chance Garnette-v, and Nate Garnette-g) recorded their third full album for Prosthetic (the band self-released their debut full length At One With The Shadows in 2004, only one year after the formation; there was an EP in 2006, called Worship The Witch) with producer / engineer Matt Hyde (think: Monster Magnet, Slayer, Winds Of Plague, The 69 Eyes, Hatebreed, Porno For Pyros and many others). There used to be a live-album in 2004 as well, by the way, which I wasn’t aware of… Brrr…
Interesting additional facts: their song Soul Thrashing Black Sorcery seems to be part of a soundtrack on Brütal Legend, some video game; Tony Laureano – think Angelcorpse, Nile, Malevolent Creation, The Black Dahlia Murder, Dimmu Borgir, Naphobia and many, many more – took care of the drum parts for a while to help the band out, after long-time drummer Derrick Nau left the (head) (bang) gang; and they did play on the whole 2010-Ozzfest-tour. Satisfied?
Forever Abomination brings just over half an hour (the main pitiful detail, I guess, this short duration) of slightly catchy yet firm Extreme Metal, somewhat balancing between actual spheres of Thrash, Death and Black Metal. The whole sounds unpolished and brutal and, in spite of the present-day sound, the primal roots of the Old School are presented with glory and pride. More than once, I do enjoy those elements that make the word ‘Epic’, and in addition the terminology as well, worth referring to those bands that projected these scenes into unforgettably remarkable eternity just like that (almost) twenty years ago.  A few times I do detest some predictable and too-easy built-up or heard-it-before excerpts, a part of the album is all right, nothing more and nothing less, yet more than once I am really intrigued by certain breath-taking parts. The latter has to do with: production, performance, cohesion, atmosphere and professional song-writing!
However, what I do want to add is this: combining Old School with modern elements, not many bands, or studios, succeed to get the right balance. In this case it is beyond expectation. That’s a certainty, and that’s a positive element. I feel I do need to mention this.
And secondly, combining Death, Black and Thrash Metal in, as mentioned right on top of here, both an ‘ancient’ and ‘progressive’ way, that’s something many new bands want to achieve yet not succeed to at all, but Skeletonwitch define the most correctly interpretable definition of this metallic equilibrium.
A final addition, positive as well, is this: the main tempo is extremely energetic and up-tempo, with just a couple of slower parts, but many semi-blasting eruptions instead. But because of the quasi-rock’n’rolling kinetics behind the whole, it keeps the totality interesting till the end.
My overall conclusion is: grow up, get an own opinion and do whatever you want with my score…

88/100

Ivan Tibos.