After a decade as a band, five albums, and enough miles logged in tour vans and planes to have circumnavigated the Earth several dozen times, Athens, Ohio metal diehards Skeletonwitch finally have their anthem. “More Cruel than Weak”—the longest song on their new and best album to date, Serpents Unleashed—builds, much like the band’s career has, in a slow, stepwise fashion. Gentle electric guitars duet around a distant drone, falling in and out and eventually adding a touch of menace just as a steady cymbal splash rises to meet them. The full kit kicks in, and the quintet holds steady for a moment. Then, in prototypical Skeletonwitch form, they rage, plowing delightedly headlong through an uneven mix of thrash, black, and death metals. “This darkness gives me reason,” growls Chance Garnette, his voice lathered with experience. “From this evil I draw strength.” Skeletonwitch swivel around a laser-edged riff and lean hard into chest-quaking, double-kick drum runs. Garnette continues with his perfect series of power-of-metal credos: “If I must go down, I will go down fucking hard,” or “Triumph only comes to those who possess the will/ to confront, annihilate the enemy.”
If all this sounds very serious, know that Garnette’s braggadocio scans more like a smile than a threat. (Remember: Their name is Skeletonwitch, which begs as much of a grin as a wince.) In fact, though Serpents Unleashed overruns with lyrics about “crush[-ing] the weak and feeble” and commands to self-immolate, Skeletonwitch seem to thrive on the fun they have as a band. Their mix of Immortal and Exodus, Amon Amarth and Iron Maiden is nothing if not excitable, never more so than on this fifth record. This music has become their lifestyle, after all, the thing that’s kept them on the road most of every year for most of the last decade. “More Cruel than Weak” feels like an internal memo that’s been made public, a reminder to stay mean while smiling and vice versa. All of Serpents Unleashed seems to chase that aim: The dual, often-dueling leads of Scott Hedrick and Nate Garnette are zealous and excitable, with solos that shoot out like solar flares and synchronized leads that feel like well-timed high fives. The rhythm section is equally emphatic; drummer Dustin Boltjes, who stands out on his second album with Skeletonwitch, finds a groove and then abuses it, racing to add extra hits in unexpected spaces. During the early-album pairing of “I Am of Death (Hell Has Arrived)” and “From a Cloudless Sky”, he pivots from black metal sustains to classic hard rock patience, never forsaking the pneumatic precision that’s become a hallmark.
In the best way, Skeletonwitch have begun to flirt with artlessness, delivering their distillation with a chutzpah that makes you hope they never try anything else. Despite that consistency, Skeletonwitch have changed producers for each of their albums, working with grunge survivor Jack Endino for 2009’s Breathing the Fire and major label veteran Matt Hyde on their most recent album, 2011’s Forever Abomination. The results of those changes have been minimal; they sounded a bit slicker and streamlined on Forever Abomination, and they seemed to have a slightly wider stylistic range on its predecessor. “We show up ready to go,” Hedrick admitted to Invisible Oranges late last year. “Typically very little gets changed in the studio.” But working with Converge guitarist and amplified egghead Kurt Ballou seems to have afforded Skeletonwitch’s sound extra depth. During the turnaround of “Beneath Dead Leaves”, for instance, Evan Linger’s bass pops like it never has before. The looming, mid-tempo throb that precedes the inevitable barrage of “Unending, Everliving” provides not only a break in the hyperactivity but shows that, for a band so locked into an approach, they can convincingly (even if only momentarily) push out of it, too. There’s more space between the guitars as well, giving the riffs and counters more room to work. These are simple touches, sure, but they stretch the bounds of Skeletonwitch just enough to notice.
Skeletonwitch have forever been known as a “live band,” a fitting if somewhat unbecoming turn for an act whose records have served mostly as advertisements for incredible live shows. On stage, Skeletonwitch are fun and somewhat jocular, a band that laces punishment with personality. In the studio, though, that’s generally been lost in the relentless of their 40-minute barrages. Serpents Unleashed doesn’t really amplify that aspect of the band, either, and their preferred form of power does occasionally blur into its own monolith. But it does add force and pacing, tweaks that help these 11 songs stand independently of the need to see them played live. That’s an added bonus, then, to Skeletonwitch’s familiar and unfussy sound.
