Review Summary: Insert clever joke about how the album title is appropriate.
My first introduction to Skinless began with a laugh. The second track off of the incredibly named "Trample the Weak, Hurdle the Dead" starts off with a sample from, I kid you not, the spoof movie Hot Shots Part Deux. Hearing that iconic line, "War, it's fantastic!" start off a blistering death metal track sets the perfect mood for how Skinless operates. Their brand of brutal death metal does not mess around, but they don't take themselves so seriously that they can't see the inherent humor in a subgenre as over the top as theirs can often be. That's not to say they're a Party Cannon, just that there's a coating of self-awareness that keeps Skinless heavy as sh*t but never something to roll your eyes at.
Savagery immediately grabbed me by the shorts hairs from the album art. Like... seriously, look at that damn thing. It's just vicious. I know album art isn't considered terribly important in the digital age since not many of us are buying physical copies, so all an album's art does is sit in a corner on our smartphones, but wow. If I had my own metal blog, this entire review would just be putting up that picture with an arrow pointed at it and saying, "It sounds like this looks."
Skinless is a brutal death metal band of the old-school variety, with nary a slam to be found. Despite being a huge slam fan, hearing death metal that keeps its boots on the ground without losing songwriting chops just for the sake of "m0re br00tz" is incredibly refreshing. It helps that these dudes are old school themselves, having formed a whopping twenty-six years ago, making the band itself older than the members in a ton of their current contemporaries.
The way Savagery's songs are constructed is right about dead center of everything that makes death metal what it is. There are double bass kicks, chunky riffs, low growls, occasional blast beats, but what makes it great is Skinless never uses any of the genre's traits as a crutch. Tempos can actually vary, with "Medieval" really slowing things down in particular, but it's a case of their meat-and-potatoes sound working so well because of the refinement that a quarter-century of experience gives. Skinless also understand how to use melody within the context of brutal death metal, a rare feat. When "Reversal of Fortune" gives an abrupt melodic break, it doesn't sound like a shoehorned in attempt at variety, because the song actually manages to hold the same mood of the rest of the album.
Quick side note: Can someone explain to me the concept of a "bonus track" on albums like this? The "deluxe edition" has one extra track at the end that's damn good, but it's not like it's a demo version, live recording, or a rarity of any sort. It's just another track, and considering host many people listen on streaming services all it does is put two versions of the album on the ol' Spotify list.
Probably the biggest issue Savagery runs into is that it does such a good job of holding everything as a cohesive whole that nothing sticks out and, ironically, some may find this boring or forgettable. None of the musicians try to show off, the vocals aren't the lowest you've ever heard, there's nothing dazzling in the songwriting. It's like building a roller coaster. Some will have one gigantic drop surrounded by not much else and yeah you'll remember that, but you're also spending the rest of the ride either anticipating that moment or looking back on it. Others never reach those heights, but they keep you looping, dropping, twisting and turning so the entire ride is a blast, even if when it's over you can't pinpoint specific moments you liked the most.
That's what Savagery is. It's a roller coaster built by industry veterans who know how to keep you screaming and throwing your hands from beginning to end, with just enough breaks to catch your breath again before the fun resumes. And it is fun. It's the most fun savagery you'll have this year.
