Review Summary: Don't wake the beast...
I made an observation long ago about the overall sound of Skullflower. It was on a college camping trip; we sat around a fire in the middle of the woods, and the last drones of Can you feel it? receded into the depths of the trees, leaving most of the group in a daze or enlightened, when I spoke:
It’s like a gigantic beast from some Lovecraftian nightmare, rolling around, howling, crushing dreams in its restless sleep.
And you DO NOT want it to wake up.
Led by Matthew Bower, Skullflower has been active since the late 80s and are still releasing albums to this day (now about 30+ have been added to their bandcamp page). The group is now a one-man project, with Bower as a sole member, but back in their early years, Skullflower were a three-man band, and their early work remains as distinctive, abrasive, and downright impenetrable as it was back then.
Most of Skullflower’s releases are, in general, quite hard to find. IIIrd Gatekeeper is the most well-known and distributed, seeing a release on the Headdirt label, meaning it does serve as the introduction of many (myself-included) to Skullflower’s massive body of work. It takes the group’s early sound, honing it to a razor sharp point, and presents a varied, yet suffocating listening experience across its 62 minute runtime.
The overall sound is straightforward, but is kept fresh in its execution. Most tracks begin with a massive, doom metal style riff, followed soon by the bass and drums that drive a heavy rhythm forward for its duration. Throughout, the band shifts things up just enough to keep things interesting. Bower is constantly moving on his fretboard, shredding, screeching, and constructing any manner of chaotic noise. Drummer Stuart Dennison sticks to simpler, more tribal beats and also provides some echoing vocals to add to the mix. Bassist Anthony Difranco holds down the same heavy groove while the others are free to use the sound as a canvas. It all sounds simultaneously improvised, yet meticulously constructed; inside a raw production job that sounds as if the group were recording at the bottom of the so-called siberian hell cavern.
Still, what keeps the album interesting is the group’s ability to use this formula to different effect on every track. Take opener Can you feel it? And closer Spoiler, for instance: both tracks start with a heaving riff that repeats until the song ends, with gigantic grooves, tribal drumming, and screeching feedback painting the sky black. But then second track, Black Rabbit, forsakes this approach for a more subdued atmosphere, using a distorted lead rather than a riff and a more muted rhythm section to create a less dark, but still extremely oppressive sound. Elsewhere, Lark’s Tongues comes out of the gate with a surging, stop-start riff, while screeching leads and Dennison’s screams echo in the background, until a chaotic drum fill and climax where the song bursts into total noise, not unlike the King Crimson record that inspires the tracks name.
But still, what confounds the most about the record is penultimate track and epic, the 11-minute long Godzilla. The band shifts gears completely, opting for more of a slow post-rock style build that’s actually upbeat. Taking what is undeniably the same sound and turning it on its head for a massive, slow build into something actually hopeful. It comes out of nowhere but still manages to somehow feel earned.
Overall, as the liner notes state, IIIrd Gatekeeper is appropriately named. It serves as the gateway for many into Skullflower, a band whose early work is more than deserving of the attention of fans of noise, drone, and even improvisational music. It functions also as their Black Album of sorts, more concise and accessible than either Xaman or Form Destroyer, but still retaining the experimentation and expertise of those former releases. Though the “band” era of Skullflower is long-dead, and Bower now faces some accusations regarding his political leanings, his early work still has a lot to offer those looking for something different, primal and heavy, and IIIrd Gatekeeper is a perfect place to start.
