For most of us time is no longer like a methodically ticking clock, the days no longer marked by the calendar or the forward motion from one scheduled routine to the next. Instead it’s like a disorienting fog, the days running into each other, each one like the one before and the one after, to the point where it’s easy to forget what day it is, or what the point is — other than to stay away from other people. The calendar says today is a Sunday, but it might as well be a Monday or a Friday. So why not have a premiere today?
The one we have is a skin-shivering track named “Kind of God” from the Greek death metal band Skarz off their debut album What Remains, which is set for release on April 21st by the triumvirate of Satanath Records, More Hate Productions, and Exhumed Records.
Skarz is the union of guitarist/vocalist Kostas Sarcastic and bassist/drummer Dimon’s Night, who draw their influences from the late ’80s and early ’90s, paying homage to the likes of Death, Obituary, Deicide, and Benediction. They’ve got carefully crafted guitar tones in their arsenal, along with macabre vocals, a taste for rhythmic dynamism, and a talent for creating moods of horror and savagery in the old ways found at the dawn of the genre.
Morbidly gruesome and savagely deranged, “Kind of God” conjures visions of rotting corpses crawling from their moldering graves and demon dogs ripping and tearing into innocent flesh with rabid ferocity. Skarz also tie together these starkly contrasting sensations with elements of dismal and desperate melody which continue to hunt and haunt the mind after the song ends.
Armed with grim and grisly riffs, manically quivering leads, and a battering percussive drive, Skarz launch the track with a vicious overture, then slow into a gruesome march, and then become an uncaged flurry of deranged scissoring leads and furiously hammering drums. The vocals mutate from raw, noxious screams to bestial guttural roars. Wild flailing melodies burn through the mayhem, and as the pace relents, a slow solo channels a desolate mood. When the band again throw caution to the winds and explode in another fury, the boiling riffs, rapidly pulsing bass, and flickering lunatic leads throw us back into the madness of an asylum beset with a conflagration of disease and raging violence.
What Remains was recorded at Demons Studios and was mixed and mastered by Dimon’s Night. The artwork and logo were created by Paint-It-Black Design.
The album will be released in a jewel-box with a Pit-Art CD and an 8-page booklet. Pre-order info is below along with a stream of the previously released track “Talking Dead“, which is available at Bandcamp as a free download.
PRE-ORDER (SATANATH):
https://satanath.bandcamp.com/album/sat288-skarz-what-remains-2020
EXHUMED RECORDS:
https://www.facebook.com/exhumedrecords
MORE HATE PRODUCTIONS:
http://www.morehate.com/
SKARZ:
http://www.facebook.com/skarz-109155540626488
TRACK LIST:
01. Skarz
02. What Remains
03. Serpent Of Darkness
04. Talking Dead
05. Premonition
06. Deathing Till T(h)rash
07. Family Obligation
08. Kind Of God
Length – 35:40