Some EPs will give you ten minutes and leave you instantly wanting more. ‘Transmogrification’ does that, but mostly because Skelethal spends ten minutes absolutely melting your brain with riffs.
The guitar tone immediately grabbed my attention. There’s a filthy old school Swedish Death Metal feel to the tone, mostly a good dose of HM-2 grit, similar to Dismember. Skelethal doesn’t keep the entire EP stomping all in the same speed. Most of it is speedy, it’s got a thrashy drive behind both riffs and drums, keeping this thing feeling on the attack.
I mention speed, but when they finally hit the brakes, it is nasty. Those alternate pace shifts add to the impact of the chugs and keep the faster parts from blending together.
The vocals also just mash in to all of this perfectly, they’re just outright disgusting and further add that little bit more of filth to the EP without distracting anything from what the guitars are up to.
Obviously Skelethal like that old Swedish Death Metal bite, but ‘Transmogrification’ doesn’t seem to be three tracks of ripping from the nostalgia barrel. There’s too much life in the play to be all that. It’s speedy and metallic and just thrashy enough, then it stretches out long enough to crush your skull with its groove. More than anything else, the riffs are there. There’s a ton of sick guitar work here for a short EP.
