Skeletonwitch - Devouring Radiant Light

The losing and replacing of bandmates is one of the less cherished realities of most bands, but it becomes far more than inconvenient and awkward when mired in alcoholism and violent behavior. And that is a major part of the context surrounding this album, as it is Skeletonwitch’s first with new vocalist Adam Clemens and first without original singer Chance Garnett (who helped start the band with his brother Nate) after a confusing and not very amicable split between the singer and his bandmates in early 2015. The three years since then have probably involved a lot of processing by Chance and the rest of Skeletonwitch, which I can’t say I’ve kept the closest eye on, and has now come to this: Devouring Radiant Light.

Skeletonwitch’s sound has always been a puzzling one to me, one I’ve tried so many times to grasp the appeal of, but after a delayed surprise adoration for Sleep’s The Sciences this year, I figured I had better take my time to try to figure out what the big deal was with their sound. I had always found the band’s mixing of melodic black metal with upbeat thrash to be one that found the two styles constantly detracting from one another in their more traditional senses, rather than building to something unique. The fun, energetic atmosphere created by the thrashy parts often undoes any sinister mood set by the more black metal-leaning parts.

Well, for the most part, Skeletonwitch reaffirm my thoughts on what makes their blend of styles kind of hard to swallow on Devouring Radiant Light, but they do come through with a few concentrated cuts that provide some insight into how much more cohesive their work could be with the right focus.

The eight-minute opener “Fen of Shadows” leads with some bright, blackgaze-esque guitars that carry the song through to the end with plenty of sweet melodic sections to spice up the composition. It’s a dynamic song that seems like it’s building toward a big emotional climax by way of its more emotive guitar backbone, but doesn’t every really quite get there by its finish. It’s a pretty song that just feels like it needed an extra push to reach its full potential.

The second track, “When Paradise Fades”, embodies the awkwardness of the blend of the thrash-like riffing and soloing with the more ethereal mood set up by the song’s main melodic black metal sections.

I really like the gang vocal-driven chorus and the tremolo-picking black metal guitar work in the background of “Temple of the Sun”, however. The bass-driven breaks are a pretty cool addition too. It’s definitely one of the better additions to the album, and it does so by focusing mostly on the melodic black metal and melodic death metal aspects of their sound. I also love the harmonized vocal refrain sung before the last chorus at the end of the track; it adds another nice melodic element to the song that, again, helps build up the mood it built before rather than jettisoning it out of some misconceived notion of dynamic.

The title track carries a rather typical example of the band’s blackened thrash, with a very Tool-esque riff near the middle being one of the only breaks in the song’s rehash of a lot of what they’ve already done.

The next track, “The Luminous Sky”, snaps back with immediately more energy than what the title track was bringing to the table. The blend of rapid-fire thrash and melodic death metal seems to actually gel into something more riff-focused than mood-focused, which is where Skeletonwitch’s sound shines: when it has the riffs to back it up when they choose to bring in some thrash.

The nine-minute “The Vault”, unfortunately, drags on and on through an only occasionally spruced up mesh of meanderingly melodic and blackgaze-y guitar sections with 

The album’s shortest song, “Carnarium Eternal”, does well to stay within the realms of thrash for the most part to get its job done, bringing some fiery riffage and powerful snarls for a quick, pummeling piece that harkens back to the band’s more attitude-driven early releases.

The closing track, “Sacred Soil” integrates a nice bit of progressive instrumentation into its Wolves in the Throne Room-esque black metal avalanche that does help to build an interesting atmospheric arch, but it again feels like it needs just a little bit more to reach the heights of bands that specialize more in this kind of thing.

Devouring Radiant Light does sound like the band is trying new things to freshen up and bolster their sound, but for the most part it seems like they’re still doing most of it haphazardly, without really paying attention to where a certain composition seems to be headed while diverting it into so many different territories.