Trample the Weak, Hurdle the Dead

“From this day forward, my people will people will crouch and conspire, and plot, and plan for the inevitable day of man’s downfall. The day when he finally turns his weapons against his own kind. When cities lie buried under radioactive rubble. When the sea is a dead sea, and the land is a wasteland, and that day is upon you.. NOW!”

What comes after the intro to this disgustingly beautiful album is easily some of the dirtiest, angriest, filthiest metal ever recorded.

Skinless are a strange bunch. They have never been able to reach the peak that this album offers in my opinion. For them, this was easily the height of their career. But what a height it is. The onslaught of absolute, unrestrained savagery on display here will leave you shocked. Rarely will you come across an album which sounds so incredibly angry that you have a hard time processing where all this disgust and hatred is coming from.

But wherever it’s coming from, I never want it to end. Despite the album clocking in at just under 37 minutes, it feels like you’ve been having your head kicked in for a weeks. There is no mercy shown on this album, no quarters given. There are no slow bits. There are no ballads. There is just assault, and enough distortion to level a small country.

Seriously, the guitar sound is one of the nastiest, grimiest things you will ever hear. I guess guitarist Noah wanted to replicate the sound of a tank, but what he got instead was a nuclear warhead. Every time he grinds a riff, it sounds like bombs are dropping on your face. All of the instrumentation on this album is fantastic though, riffs for days, you can literally hear the bodies being thrown on top of each other in mass graves.

The concept of this album is obviously war, as one can guess from the track titles and album cover, which stands out as one of my favorite covers of all time - as the image is quite an accurate description of listening to the music. A guy in a gas mask shoving a shotgun down your throat and pulling the trigger. Yup, this album certainly sounds like that.

Jason Keyser (Origin) does vocals on this album, and they are excellent. However it makes me wonder why his vocals aren’t half as good for Origin. Either way, the vocal performance here is quite varied and packs a nice, thick punch. The general production, sound and mix on the album is what makes it so beautiful though. It sounds like a rotting tank covered in mud, rolling over fields of corpses, unleashing hell on earth. Honestly, this could not sound more perfect for the theme and vibe of this album.

A display in barbaric savagery, “Trample the Weak, Hurdle the Dead” should not be missed. If for some reason this has slipped under your radar, then it’s time to pick it up, give it a spin, and be decimated.

Standout tracks : Overlord, A Unilateral Disgust, Trample the Weak, Hurdle the Dead, Execution of Reason.

Originally written for Antichrist : http://antichristmagazine.com

Imagine being a soldier on a heavily bombarded battlefield fighting for your life, then turning to see your own father's head being crushed by an approaching tank. Seeing his terrified face get crushed before said tank aims it cannon towards you to obliterate your distressed ass.

Yep. This album is just that damn brutal. The only chance, or warning, should I say. That you'll get to brace yourself before the incoming sonic rape is in the beginning of opener "Overlord" where there is a sample playing. Then the carnage hits you and shreds you to little pieces like a human-sized meat grinder. "WEEEEEEEEE!!!".

The guitar tone is massive, the drum blasting is gargantuan and the singer turns the listener into his little bitch right from the start. The fast riffs in songs like "Overlord", "Spoils Of The Sycopanth", as well as the title track somehow manage to be razorsharp with a cutting noise to them. Very much like a damn chainsaw. A weaponized chainsaw that fires nails into the flesh of everything in sight. The tone is sharp without sacrificing low end effect. In fact, the riffs from the guitars have this constant treble and doom sound to them all throughout the album.

Tremolo riffs, pinch harmonics and dissonant guitar slides appear in and out of the mix like a fucking machine gun peppering the enemy to death. Only stopping occasionally to reload ammunition. In effect giving the drums (reloading supportive soldier) some time to shine with fills and double bass work before coming back full strength to kill the listener with more bludgeoning riffs of death.

This is guitar oriented metal in every sense of the word. The band really utilizes the wall of sound production well. Cramming as many heavy as fuck riffs as possible in the songs. Not in the overly technical for the sake of being technical sense. The riffs are not polished and noodley tech death riffs. The riffs on here are almost always hard and slamming, they are allowed to rumble and reverb to their full effect.

Occasionally the band takes a riff and plays it in a descending manner until it slams as hard as possible. Which is extremely satisfactory for a multitude of reasons. One being that it gives some versatility to the composition, changing up the speed and time signatures makes the music a bit more engaging and complex. The other reason being that it's just really fucking awesome headbanging to an earthquake-like groove amidst all the blistering high-pitched speed sections.

The singer conveys the terror, hate and agony of war through his skull shattering growls, nasty pig squeals and ear shattering high-pitched screams. You could consider his voice an extra instrument of sorts. In the sense that his vocal lines mostly follow the structure of the rhythm guitars and are there to add to the crushing layer of the instrumental assault. I can't recall hearing the bass guitar. But trust me, there's bass enough in the overall mix for five more death metal albums. This album crushes everything in it's path.

The only downside here is that some riffs in the track "Endvisioned" sound tired and reiterated from earlier songs. Also, the Black Sabbath cover didn't really hit home with me. But fuck it. This album slays.

If you've got some good speakers set up, pop in this record and let tracks like "Trample The Weak, Hurdle The Dead" mush you into a fine paste. Seriously. This record will grind you to dust.

Goodness me, this is heavy. I mean, MASSIVELY heavy. It’s like crossing something like, I don’t know… Black Sabbath, or Witchsorrow with the most horrendous wife beating brutal death metal you can find. And a tank. The band are clearly focused on impact here, and there has been no effort to disguise or alleviate that; no solos, no melodic passages to soothe the senses, and it works wonderfully. Add to this a production job that blows each song right through the speakers and you are left with an album that is so huge and so aggressive that it borders on confrontational.

Part of the appeal is the fact that this doesn’t just come across as thuggish nonsense. The theme of the album (war and extermination) goes well with the intensity of the songwriting, and it really gives the album a sense of direction. ‘Overlord’, the albums opener, lays out Skinless’ intentions perfectly clearly, with a wonderfully chosen sample from Conquest of the Planet of the Apes concerning the coming days of the downfall of man.

And then: cue all-out sonic assault. In terms of intensity, I was actually reminded of Napalm Death’s ‘Smear Campaign’ album, because it was simply so invasive and aggressive that it actually became a little tough to listen to. The blast beats and chunky riffs come at you with such force and intention that it is hard to do anything but simply accept the legitimacy of Skinless’ material in the same way that a soldier has no choice but agree to murder and decimate the enemy purely on the strength of instruction from a Sergeant Major.

Incidentally, we get a bit of this treatment on the title track, which begins with excerpts from the infamous Patton speech; “We’re not just going to shoot the bastards… We are going to cut out their living guts, and use them to grease the treads of our tanks. We’re going to murder those bastards by the bushel”. Again, the brutality ensues with huge sonic intent. I would normally give kudos to each individual band member; vocalist Jason Keyser puts in an absolutely stellar performance throughout, and Bob Beaulac’s percussion performance is faultless, but the album is written and structured in such a way that Skinless work so well as a unit that it is the band as a whole that must be commended for their tasteful songwriting.

In terms of Brutal Death Metal, it’s fairly easy to see what makes this a stand alone album; choice of theme, production value, speed (as this feel generally like an altogether faster-than-the-norm BDM record)… Skinless pretty much excel in every department here. 35 minutes is a good length for this album; enough quality and memorable material is on display to eliminate much of the opportunity for filler, and yet still leaves you utterly convinced by the performance of the band. You will hear the songs on “Trample The Weak, Hurdle The Dead” and then want to watch Full Metal Jacket for days on end. Have a listen, and smell the burning debris. Oo-rah.

Wow. I just keep finding more and more brilliant brutal death metal. On my many voyages into the depths of extremity, I discovered Skinless. Apparently, this was their best work, so it was a natural choice to begin with. What a great discovery.

The album begins with a sample from Conquest of the Planet of the Apes. I'm usually not a fan of samples in metal, and especially not brutal death metal, but this one sets the tone of this album's theme, and that theme is war. Immediately we are met with a crushing riff and a guttural shriek and you feel violated by some of the most face-stomping death metal ever made.

The riffs are crushing and heavy, and range from slower chugging to faster, almost grooving parts. The album also contains some breakdowns, but these are well placed within the music and only used when the music needs to slow down and take a rest.

The bass is audible in some places, which is surprising, due to how loud the guitars are. The drums are competently played and keep the music going at a perfect pace, with occassional technical fills coming through.

The vocalist uses a wide range of techniques, including a throaty growl, raspy scream and occassional pig squeals. Each technique is used in abundance, which certainly makes the album feel fresh as you're not listening to the same monotonous death growl for several minutes.

As i've said before, this album contains several samples, usually from war movies. Samples are a pet peeve in metal for me, but for once they're used well, and really fit in with the overall album feel.

The album also contains a frankly phenomenal cover of Wicked World by Black Sabbath. Performing a brutal death metal version of a metal classic is very brave, and in this case it pays off heavily. I dare say it beats the original.

Listening to Skinless is nothing if not an enjoyably visual experience. The four-man wrecking ball of a death metal band have reached a certain lofty plateau of recognition for very good reasons indeed; when you’re willingly subjected to their grotesquely and ponderously slow-paced breed of extraordinarily brutal DM, they are one of the few bands who seem to able to conjure up images of disgusting clarity in the mind of all the horrors that might befall this unwitting world.
Listen to that monstrous, crashing riff on ‘Execution of Reason’, and challenge yourself not to see gigantic, obsidian creatures emerging from the waters around the bands’ native New York and begin to lay waste to everything in sight. Lend an ear to the lumbering guitar and punishing drums of title track ‘Trample The Weak, Hurdle The Dead’ and do your damned best not to witness hell-spawned armoured vehicles rolling forth across a field of corpses, crushing bones and spraying gouts of blood in every direction.

Can’t do it? Damn right you can’t.

‘Trample The Weak...’ is a quintessentially brutal modern DM record – with each and every aspect of its construction, from the bodily-fluid-engorged growling vocals and a guitar tone so meaty it is virtually bathed in gore, through the beefed-up production and clear-as-day mixing job, and right up to that certain degree of twisted black humour, Skinless have each and every box marked with a large bloody tick.

What’s refreshing about ‘Trample The Weak...’, rather than being an exercise in same-old, same-old breakdown-based brutality, is that they’ve managed amidst a fairly restricted genre to carve out a strong sense of identity for themselves on each track they lay down.
Here, the songs are not technically remarkable and decidedly unconcerned with the instrumental oodling many deathsters have tried but a select few have pulled off. Nor are they one-riff chuggathons with an identical breakdown playing on a loop for nigh-on 37 minutes.

Instead, Skinless occupy something of a comfortable middle ground, keeping their death metal decidedly straightforward and becoming all the more relentlessly intense for doing so. Riffs here are not arbitrary displays of skill but seem to have been crafted not only to fit comfortably within a proper song structure but to actually stick in the brain with their incisive, crushing power. Variation is given due thought and care; while the band mostly favour a hefty mid-pace they make several jumps to high speeds at the best possible moments, or even slow down to a sinister crawl – they in short do anything in service of the song without ever sounding masturbatory.
If truth be told, the band are one of the few death metal groups nowadays that seem to having quite a chuckle doing what they do – who else could insert the legendary ‘Patton’ film quote “We’re not just going to shoot the bastards...” or “War. It’s fantastic!” into a brutal death metal record and get away with it?

Ultimately, ‘Trample The Weak...’ is a joyously grim and nasty smash around the face, breaking nothing in the way of new ground but rather mercilessly stomping over the well worn paths in a pair of custom-made, steel-toed combat boots. Violent, bloody and loaded with misanthropic black humour, the record is not to be missed but anyone who enjoys having a death metal war machine lay siege to their eardrums.

Wow this album kicks ass. Where do I start? First off, the theme. The war theme is a fresh topic in brutal death metal. It is nice to see a band that doesn’t rely on the horror gore theme. Great start. The whole feel of the album is one of intensity. Every song is a story of war that makes you the main character. Once you put this on, you won't want to turn it off. With that said, let's begin.

First off, the vocals. The vocalist is one of the best out there. This is no understatement. He ranges from low growls to gritty mids, even to pig squeals. The vocalist mainly uses lows, but finds great points to throw in a mid range growl or a squeal. Now I’m not a fan of the squeal, but this guy's squeals totally changed my perception. Normally when you think of pig squeals you think of a shitty deathcore band that overuses them way to much. Not here. He rarely uses them, but when he does it's an intense rush that boosts your adrenaline to it's highest. No complaints with the vocals.

Next, the guitars. While they are highly inaudible, they are awesome. It adds to the overall feeling of the album. The bass is almost non-existent, too. But that can be easily overlooked. You probably won't even notice that the bass is gone because you'll be so perplexed by the greatness of the songs.

Lastly, the drums. While some death metal drummers are boring and rely on blast beats WAY to much, Skinless is here to perk you up.... A LOT. The drumming never gets old. I can easily say he is one of the most talented drummers in the death metal genre. Not for sheer speed or perfection, but for how he works perfectly with the guitars and vocals. They combine to create a face melting, neck breaking machine known as Skinless.

Well, why are you still reading this? Go and buy this album as soon as fucken possible. If your a fan of death metal, or any sub genre of metal at all, this is a must buy. GET IT NOW!!!!!!!!

Highlights- THE WHOLE DAMN ALBUM.

This is an album I attainted without any prior notion of the band. As we're all too well aware, being brutal is one of the current trends circulating the music scene at present. Obviously, this leads to a whole host of intolerable garbage that is simply trying too hard to fulfill the brutal criteria. That's on one side of the coin. On the other, we have bands like Skinless and their latest release Trample the Weak, Hurder the Dead. For just over 35 minutes, Skinless assault their listener's ears with some very heavy death metal, predominantly based around the theme of war, rounding it off with their rendition of a Black Sabbath classic.

Throughout the album, Skinless make appropriate use of samples. Unlike many other bands that utilize film samples which end up comprising the bulk of their songs, Skinless implements them in a fashion that builds the foundations to each track or concludes them accordingly. One of the more memorable samples leads the listener into A Unilateral Disgust. One witty, 3 second soundclip sums up the whole basis of the album and shows that samples can be good for a song when chosen wisely and trimmed so not to become overbearing.

The vocals on this recording range from a deep growl to a death metal roar, all the way through to a higher-pitched scream, and the change from one to the other can be as unpredictable as anything. For me as a listener, if an album has poor vocals then this fact tends to overshadow even the best guitar work. I confess that it took me a few listens until I was able to appreciate the vocalist's technique. It's not that he's bad, far from it in fact, it's just that his style took a while to sink in. However, after a few spins, I allowed the vocals to grow on me. Their contribution to the album is fantastic, and if you're not a big fan on the archetypal 'burped' vocals that often feature in 'brutal' death metal, you'll find a welcome change here. He manages to maintain the necessary edge, whilst adding his own flavour to the style.

A downside that I have found when listening to this album is that both the vocal and guitar work tend to dominate the production. The drums can be heard, and what is offered brings a vital component to the mix. The drummer plays with the typical techinicality that you would expect in accompaniment of the guitars, but their presence is perhaps too subdued in the grand scheme of things. Whilst the bass is almost completely drowned out on this album, it is obvious that it participates in the thick sound in each track, combining with the double bass to form an impenetrable wall of bass brutality.

To top off the madness, Skinless complete this release with Sabbath's 'Wicked World', renovating it in the death metal style. The track is still left with the bluesy feel that's evident in Sabbath's music, but Skinless bring their own style to the table making it seem less like a cover and more like another track perfectly suited for Trample the Weak, Hurdle the Dead.

To comment on the length of this release, I don't consider it too short. For an album such as this, to be much longer would detract from the intensity. At just under 37 minutes, it is the perfect length for its style and suits its in-your-face approach absolutely.

Don't come to this album expecting to hear a plethora of technical playing, nor should you expect great variation from each song. There's nothing really new here, but that's not to say this album isn't enjoyable. To put it simply, Trample the Weak, Hurdle the dead is an unrelenting, single-minded slab of modern death metal that will pound away at your eardrums for a shade under 37 minutes leaving you bloodthirsty and hungry for war.

While a lot of supposed brutal death metal bands try to be brutal with lots of fast tremlo picked riffs and thin production, skinless actually have made an album that is actually deserving of the title brutal death. The albums theme is war, and through the use of audio samples about war and killing, each song transitions perfectly and keeps the feel of a war. No 2 songs sound the same and even though some are slower than the others, they aren't any less heavy than the fast ones.

With a theme like war you'd imagine the album to be chaotic, heavy, and generally violent. The production fits it perfectly. The album literally sounds like you've been thrown into a war with explosions, gunfire and battles surrounding you. After the intro to Overlord, the album blasts into full force with loud smashing guitars that while are extremely distorted, are still clear and you can hear every note, along with drums that are perfectly clear and double bass parts that pound your face in. The vocals range from screams to growls, basically a lot of different styles are covered and even though you can't really hear all the notes the bass guitar is playing, the bass on the album is overwhelming in a good way and makes the sound fat and dense.

While the production is amazing and perfectly fits the album, you can't make a good album just by having good production. The riffs range from blazing fast and slamming to slow and chugging and all of them flow really well and feel like they've been thought out and aren't just thrown together. The drums accent the guitars perfectly by providing the feel of the riff, while having slow slamming riffs and insane double bass attacks, it adds even more heavyness while the vocalists screams really rip into you. It really seems like a collective effort and doesn't seem amateurish at all and feels a lot more thought out with an idea in mind than the earlier stuff does. It basically feels more evolved and mature. There is not one bad song on this album.

All in all, if you're a fan of brutal death metal at all, or even a fan of death metal, or hell even a fan of metal at all, to not get this would be a huge mistake. Skinless have created a masterpiece with this album and even though its only 8 songs (including a brutal death version of Black Sabbath's Wicked World), it doesn't feel short and by the end of it you'll feel your ass has been kicked.

This album is a fucking beast. From the opening sample (Roddy McDowall in Conquest of the Planet of the Apes) to the closing bass notes, TRAMPLE THE WEAK, HURDLE THE DEAD will pummel you with its incredibly bass-heavy production. Producer Brett Portzer loaded down the bottom end, and it works. The album is all about war, and the crushing rhythm section propels your brain straight into the trenches.

New vocalist Jason Keyser is the standout performer on this album. I didn’t think that Sherwood Webber was a terrible vocalist, or that he held the band back, but Jason’s vocals are more consistent. His growls are impressive, and his screams provide a strong counterpoint. He could never out-scream someone like Corpsegrinder, but he doesn’t need to. And, as GravesOfOurFathers mentioned, the double-tracked vocals are a great addition.

Breakdowns crop up every now and then, but the band executes them skillfully and stays safely out of the realm of hardcore. I didn’t notice it during the first listen, as I was too busy holding my gray matter together, but TRAMPLE THE WEAK, HURDLE THE DEAD has no solos. None from Noah Carpenter, none from Bob Beaulac, and none from Joe Keyser. “A Unilateral Disgust” tricks you into thinking that it has a guitar solo, but the riff is repeated later in the song.

Lyrically, Skinless has chosen to avoid the blood-and-guts themes common to most death metal, as well as the piss-and-shit themes common to their earlier work. Seeing as Jason was the primary lyricist for this album, the latter is not surprising. Interestingly, the lyrics are often ambiguous. Or maybe I’m just too stupid to figure them out. Whatever. Anyway, the lyrics display a high level of sophistication and an impressive use of vocabulary (especially for death metal). There is actually very little violence to be found in these songs. Chemical warfare appears in the title track, and “Overlord” features a somewhat sanitized account of the D-Day invasion, but that’s about it. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, though.

Everyone mentions the cover of Black Sabbath’s “Wicked World,” and why not? It’s pretty damn good (Sabbath riffs + death growls = fucking awesome). It’s not a dead-on imitation like Pantera’s version of “Planet Caravan.” Skinless took this song and made it their own, the way a cover should be done. It helps that they picked a song that fits the overall theme of the album.

After their absence on FROM SACRIFICE TO SURVIVAL, the samples have made their triumphant return. A classic line from Hot Shots Part Deux opens “A Unilateral Disgust,” and that crazy bastard Patton contributes a perfect introduction to “Trample the Weak, Hurdle the Dead.” However, “Execution of Reason” is badass enough to earn samples at the beginning and the end of the song. The only negative is that a couple run a little too long for my liking, but your mileage may vary.

In the end, if you like death metal, you need to buy this album. Buy it for the pants-shittingly-heavy production. Buy it for the mind-blowing vocal performance. Buy it for the skilled instrumentation. Buy it for the ridiculous samples. TRAMPLE THE WEAK, HURDLE THE DEAD is kind of short at a little under 37 minutes, but it’s all killer, no filler. Worth every penny, and then some.

After Skinless's 2003 outing, From Sacrifice To Survival, expectations were set high for the release of 2006's Trample The Weak, Hurdle The Dead. And while it's quite a different animal from their previous work, they've still managed to make a killer album.

It's not worth it to write a track-by-track review, as seven out of the eight songs are virtually identical. Make no mistake: the material here is neither melodic, complex, or relenting. It's just a blast of death metal mixed with some grind and a bit of hardcore. Tackling the theme of warfare, the lyrics are abound with horrific visions of chemical warfare, death, and the like. This doesn't make for any variation, but the band nailed the sound. The guitars are loud and bassy, the drums punchy, and the vocals somewhat buried in the mix, but definitely worth paying attention to nevertheless. The new vocalist has a great mix of low growls, "ree's," and high-pitched screams that make for some excellent double-tracking in a few places. The production emphasizes nothing at all, sacrificing definition for pure closeness and volume. It really sounds like you're in a warzone. Don't pump this CD up in your car stereo- it really might blow the speakers out with the insane bass levels.

As far as the music goes, the guitars are mostly chugging power chord riffs on the low strings. This adds to the relentless brutality, but can get monotonous sometimes. Thankfully, there are a few spots with actual legitimate riffs, most of which are mind-blowingly catchy and well done. The bass follows the guitar most of the time, though it's audible in a few places, most notably as the last few notes on the album. The drums are fairly quiet, as the bass and guitars drown most everything else out, but they are doing some interesting things, most evident on the more fast-paced tracks. There are samples at the beginning of most songs, some of which are eerie, and occasionally hilarious.

The last track is a cover of Black Sabbath's Wicked World, which is brilliant when considering the original, and also gives the listener an interesting chance to experience what the production would sound like on the rest of the album if all the riffs weren't so chugriffic. Well done.

If there's one thing that should be noted, it's that listeners should NOT buy Trample The Weak thinking it's technical. There are no guitar, bass, or drum solos anywhere. The real talent comes in the songwriting, ambiance, and groove of the album. It's also very brief, at 36 minutes, but the lack of variation among the tracks makes the length work perfectly. Having said that, it's an absolute blast of an album and should be experienced by any DM fan. Buy it.

The old boys from New York are back, and they have provided another slab of hearty NYDM, which I find most enjoyable. Oddly enough, however, I found the bands previous work trivial and boring; this just seems to capture something special.

The music on here is largely midpaced, heavy, and slammy. You will be nodding your head to most of it, if not banging it in excess. A lot of the riffs have a familiar palm muted power chord sound, and there is a bit of thrash influence on here, as riffs spewed throughout the album don't sound like they'd be out of place in deathrash. The vocals are also to be complemented: the new vocalist is brutal as hell and has a great pig snarl. He delivers the lines with force and fury, and when he goes into the higher vocals, it acts as a nice counterpoint to the largely low vocals. Even cooler are when the vocals layer, with the higher vocals on top of the lower vocals.

A few shortcomings become quickly obvious. Primarily, this album is only about 30 minutes long... which may for some be a bit too short. Additionally, there isn't much variation in those 30 minutes, as most riffs seem confined to power chords on the low string (I think they tune to B?). However, it is worth noting some more technical moments such as a certain riff in the second track (A Unilateral Distrust). Another thing that might upset some is the fact that he album presents us with some breakdowns; it's obvious these guys have listened to a little hardcore recently. However, I feel that the breaks tend to retain a more NYDM slam-riff feel than a generic-hardcore-chuggah-chuggah-lowest-note-in-polyrhythm feel. One thing I particularly liked is the "almost-breakdown" in Deviation Will Not be Tolerated, near the end.

Worth a quick mention are the samples used in between a few songs. They fit the album well, and the sample that segues into their cover of Wicked World is hilarious. Ah yes, Wicked World... apparently the band decided to have a little fun and cover one of the more jazz-rocky tracks from Black Sabbath's debut, and well... they do it quite well!! Honestly quite hilarious at first (especially with knowledge of the original in mind) but it's well done the lyrics fit well with the rest of the album.

All in all, very solid, but nothing new. Some definitely very good moments of crushing heaviness, mixed with some mediocre moments of things sounding very similar. I give it a definite thumbs up and do not regret this purchase at all!

As their previous release, FROM SACRIFICE TO SURVIVAL, was more into Hardcore, so is their new stomping album, TRAMPLE THE WEAK, HURDLE THE DEAD a great, groovey, fast, and pounding Brutal Death Metal piece. After 14 years and 4 Full Lenght releases, Skinless have become a reknown name in the genre of Brutal Death Metal, and they mean business. Being from New York, they just had to have some Hardcore influences in their music, but still they wanted to do something more extreme and bash the fuck outta the music. Their new release is all about destruction, war, misery and death.

Not only the cover, but also the music reminds of a World War II warfare; in the bakcground you hear screams of burnt soldiers, granades tear the limbs and skin of the forsaken, and you wish you were there. In "Deviation Will Not Be Tolerate" you even hear tanks moving, which really makes the whole war ambient perfect. The blast beats sound like machine guns, the guitars like plane roaring, and when the vocals bash your ears and cut them like salami, you will beg for a bullet in the head. The only thing I miss here is some napalm hehe.

This reminds of Vader's ealier releases, as they used to incorporate elements of war scenes into their songs (just watch the "Cold Demons" video - tanks all over the place!). And so does the music of Skinless remind a bit of the old Vader, and the time when Doc used to beat the living crap outta his drums (RIP Doc). With certain new ideas, Skinless came up with a great production, that fits the bands sound perfectly, making the music even more intense and brutal. Some of the chords are very downtuned, and sound very groovey and arse-kicking. FROM SACRIFICE TO SURVIVAL was not one of my fav albums, but the new Skinless is one of my favorite bands, since their music now sounds fresh, and I just have to nod my head, and from time to time headbang a bit. Definitely a great turn of the band, and a promising new epoch.

And for everybody who expects something special - I suggest you take a listen into the last song, "Wicked World", a Black Sabbath cover, that just kicks ass. That one song is worth taking a listening into the new CD.