SKULL REAPER, No Way Back (2004, demo)

The skull:
It’s not a bad painting, this one. Why a skull would be strapped to a large stone disc thusly is anyone’s guess, and there’s something about the angle of the composition that reminds me of those frilly clown collars rich dudes wore in Renaissance England, but aside from that nonsense, this is a nice enough cover. Of course, plonking the logo where they did was an act of aesthetic violence, and that logo itself looks like some free splatter font the band downloaded from some Russian site with flashing text, so it’s not like these guys are totally innocent of crimes against art, but at least their skull looks more or less anatomically correct and is posed in an original way. That’s more than we normally get around here.

The music:
Skull Reaper recorded two demos but left nary a trace on the internet. By 2004, they should have at least had some shitty Myspace page, but if they did, they deleted it (and NO ONE deletes those things; you’d be surprised how many of the demos I’ve had to review here could only be heard on the ancient, long since abandoned Myspace page of an extinct band.) Metal Archives files the band under “Death N Roll” so I’m more than a little happy to not have to endure what is surely an awful quartet of songs. One of these days, I’ll make a sidebar to list all the unheard BDS entries, so that helpful and sadistic readers can send music to us Friars, but for now, I’m going to luxuriate in yet another evening unsullied by shitty metal.
— Friar Johnsen