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The Skull Defekts, "The Temple"
Hailing from the northern reaches of Europe, Sweden based Skull Defekts return here, further honing their distinctive blend of tribal hard rock into a taut set of highly focused songs. Seeking to tread the line between overt psychedelia and more prog-based power rock, the group's aesthetic finds some deep pockets of funky groove along the way while also setting foot into trenches that perhaps lie a little too close to a brand of pop-rock that a group of this caliber certainly has the capacity to avoid.
These two sides present themselves right from the get-go with "Knives, Birds, Stones & Pyramids." Opening with a guitar power chord progression that would not be out of place in a more radio-friendly rock group like Incubus, grooving drums soon come in to accompany them as a menacing vocal repeats the title. While it feels a tad heavy-handed, this also appears to be a big part of the group's sound, and the overall effect is far more interesting than the average group working within these constraints.
"Waving" takes the psychedelic level up a notch with snaking vocal lines before a chorus not far removed from PiL's "Careering" presents the album's first moment of surprise. "Six Sixes" opens with a shimmering and quite well realized drone whose aimlessness serves as a welcome respite from the pummeling pulse of the first two tracks. As thudding, in-the-pocket drumming careens atop, the unit seems to have hit their stride, building a psychedelic stew of approaches into a sound that really grabs you from all sides and pulls in all directions at once. With nearly 12 minutes to stretch out here, the unit finally has the time to move, and they take it far beyond the stratos here with engaging synth play before exploding into truly cataclysmic material, pounding along and repeating the title as they stretch beyond any point they've achieved thus far.
With "Hydrophobic Baptism" however, the group return to their taut, post-metal song structures, and no matter how well conceived it may be, it still reads as a tad silly. And perhaps it's supposed to, but the group sometimes gets uncomfortably close to the sound of groups like System of a Down, despite their far more repetitive and unhindered approach. "Unholy Drums for Psychedelic Africa" is more or less what it sounds like, with multiple drums ripping along above subtle washes of background fuzz and drone that sound alright, but don't really serve to push the album forward much. Momentum is merely maintained once more.
The rush forward continues with "Habit," whose drum and guitar-heavy sound leaves it disappointingly indecipherable from much of the rest. Even when shards of guitar make their way in it still is rendered surprisingly stale by this point. Which, again, is frustrating—the group clearly has plenty of interesting ideas and a broad musical palette to choose from. It's just that with so little room to breathe it is hard to keep the album moving along as a whole. "Skull & Tongue" opens up a bit into some Amon Düül-style meanderings that see a group incredibly adept musically. Yet despite its decidedly less structured contents, the bass line feels like it could well be used on nearly any track here.
The album closes with "Urban Ritual," whose title seems to sum up the group's desired aesthetic. Its patient opening soon crumbles into a strange realm that lies somewhere between dub-step production and doom metal decay. It is a grim and unexpected end to an album whose overall effect is somehow more predictable than one might hope. The album also comes as a double LP which claims an extra album's worth of material. Supposedly this extra material is less focused and more drifting, which may be just what the album needs to live up to its promise. With this much focus however, it comes across as a tad stale, if riddled with intriguing moments and plenty of potential.
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