Skulld - "Reinventing Darkness" (DIY co-production, 2020)

Band: Skulld

Title: Reinventing Darkness

Genre: Death Metal with Crust Punk influences

Time: 20.57 min

Release Date: 20th February 2020

Vote: 76/100

In March of 2020, so in full quarantine times, a video about an Italian metalhead covering the Slayer's "Raining Blood", that he dedicated to an old woman owning a famous kiosk in her small town (Bertinoro), became literally viral. I remember I had a lot of fun to watch that very short video! But only in these days I realized that that metalhead effectively plays the guitar in a death metal band. That band is called Skulld (after Skuld, a Norn in the Norse mythology that, along with other two Norns, has the power to decide the fate of the people), a quintet coming from two Italian regions, Lombardy and Emilia-Romagna, that published so far two releases since their foundation in 2018: a demo and the EP "Reinventing Darkness", both in 2019. Well, I received this last one from a friend of mine running the amazing webzine Blog Thrower (shame that it's on hold since June 2020!), that produced "Reinventing Darkness" in a DIY co-production with other 12 metal and punk labels. They are too much to be all listed but some of them were already featured on these pages such as Italian Extreme Underground, Hecatombe Records, Pirate Crew Records (I met his owner during the Marci su Roma 2 Fest) and SFA Records. This connection with the punk world isn't a case because every member of the Skulld comes just from hardcore punk since, for example, the aforementioned video star, Enrico, plays also in bands like NoWhiteRag, the drummer Teo in the Contrasto while the other guitarplayer, Rappo, is into even in a great black/death metal act of the calibre of Hierophant. And don't forget that we are in presence of a band with fantastic values such as antifascism and antisexism. All this is fukken awesome... but is also "fukken awesome" "Reinventing Darkness" in its entirety? FUCK YEAAAAH!

After this interminable introduction, "Reinventing Darkness" is a 6-track EP in which, throughout its almost 21 minutes of lenght, there is essentially a Swedish death metal with plenty of crust punk influences, reminding me a lot of similar bands like Profanal, Gravesite, Mannaia and Bombs of Hades. This crust punk side allows to Skulld to sound very intense (for example, listen to the initial attack of "Beaivi" and then let me know if it doesn't give you the will to mosh like damned!) but the intensity is so extreme that they don't need any guitar solos that, in fact, are completely absent. And their music is a lot dynamic, so to range without problems from a furious blast-beat mania to slow tempos going also through groovy moments, and this even thanks to some thrash and, in a lesser way, black metal influences, as in "Satanic Feminism".

Among the songs, I like in particular two of them. The first one is "Cold Hands in Circle Reborn", a short assault lasting only one minute e 40 seconds of unadultered fury and fantastic riffs, and it isn't a case if I included it into "Come on, burn my ears! #8"! Finally, the second one si the following "Satanic Feminism", a real anthem that isn't only the most structured number of the EP but also the darkest one since its black metal tunes here and there (like in some arpeggios).

But there is a feature that characterizes the Skulld in a truly special way: the lyrics, that are focused on a feminist occultism. For this, the band, for example, mentions female deities like Beaivi, the goddess of the sun, spring and sanity belonging to the Samy mythology. But the peak of these lyrical themes is reached just in "Satanic Feminism", that, as I said before, is a "real anthem" against the "thousand years of oppression" inflicted to the women, promising that the gestures of the "rebels of the past" will be not in vain. And the nice thing is that Pamela transmit to the listeners all this through a palpable rage and desperation with her vocals.

In brief, I am very enthusiast about "Reinventing Darkness" by Skulld, and I think that they are one of the most promising young Italian bands out there, without ifs and buts, so I must thank a lot Frank Blogthrower to sending me this EP. But now... do you would like to watch that video? Well, here it is! ENJOY IT but, especially, ENJOY THE EP!

Tracklist:

1 - Red Moon

2 - The Priestess

3 - The Darkest Hour

4 - Beaivi

5 - Cold Hands in Circle Reborn

6 - Satanic Feminism

Line-up:

Pam - vocals

Enrico - guitars

Rappo - guitars

Ciufs - bass

Teo - drums

FaceBook: https://www.facebook.com/skulldbanditaly/

BandCamp: https://skulldband.bandcamp.com/