As metal subgenre hybrids go, mixing up black and death metal is one of the most natural and challenging pairings out there. It’s natural in that musicians gravitate towards taking the more extreme genres and blurring the boundaries between them to try and push things further, but therein lies the challenge too. If you do too little, you don’t stand out in a crowded field; do too much and it just becomes over-dense and loses its edge. French band Skaphos are one of the latest bands to walk that tightrope, all while trying to avoid falling into the latest patented Girardi spaceocean-bunghole that’s decorating the cover of their third album, Cult of Uzura.
I say walk the tightrope, but that suggests something straightforward. But whatever path Skaphos are walking here is twisted and labyrinthine. Their take on blackened death metal has a lurching cosmic groove reminiscent of early Morbid Angel, as on on songs like “Hypoxia” and “Skaphism”. There’s also plenty of dissonant melodies, as with “The Offering” and the outro of “Echoes of the Drowned”. The result is that Cult of Uzura is a lot more rhythmically interesting than most blackened death albums while also being accessible and absorbing without sacrificing aggression or density of sound. Most of Cult of Uzura‘s melodies trend towards the black metal end and aren’t particularly memorable on their own, but as part of the full package of Skaphos‘ songwriting and variety of sound, they are. Repeated listens continue to throw up interesting new wrinkles too, particularly in Nathan Faure‘s drumwork, which takes full advantage of the opportunities offered by Skaphos‘ sound.
In short, Skaphos make the journey. They don’t fall down and discover whether that’s the kraken’s eye, butt, or both. They didn’t blow me away or reinvent anything, but they did provide a distinctive, quality take on blackened death metal. We will learn in time whether listeners as a whole think Cult of Uzura stands out from the field but for me, Skaphos have marked themselves as one to remember.
