SKULLTORCH, demo (2007)

The skull:
It would seem this skull is floating in a forest in autumn, with leaves actively falling across his brow. And he looks pretty pissed off about the situation. Very simple black and white, with a totally generic logo at the top. The skull is not even mounted on top of a torch or anything. Maybe he’s on a quest for the torch, roaming through dense endless forests, and when he finds it in the castle the reunion will be glorious and many elves and dwarves will come together to celebrate the completeness of skulltorch and all will be joyous in the kingdom.But it’s probably just another ill-conceived album cover from a band that lacks a bit of vision.

The music:
This Belgian band haven’t followed up this utterly forgettable four-song demo yet, so we’re going on six years there. Not surprising, as they really had nothing important to say in the first place. It doesn’t get much more boring than this: Pantera-influenced groove metal punctuated with the kind of mid-paced death metal Unleashed were doing around the time of the Warrior album or what Gorefest started doing on False and Soul Survivor. But see, that makes Skulltorch sound almost good, and they’re not. While the drummer is clearly talented, the two-chord chug riffs and even some of the vocal patterns are not that far from nu-metal level inanity. I’ll take a pass and hope that someday one of these modern metal bands with a skull cover on their demo will be totally amazing.
— Friar Wagner