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Skeletonwitch are my favorite blackened thrash band. No other has quite the same mix of caustic blackened riffs and vocals with a deep-seated sense of melody pervading this sound. Devouring Radiant Light is the band’s first full length in five years, and their first with Adam Clemens, after the dramatic departure of founding vocalist Chance Garnette. It sounds like a proper rebirth. The album art is the first clue. Skeletonwitch 1.0’s covers were always adorned with a fanged, antlered skull. It was their Eddie or Vic Rattlehead. Devouring Radiant Light eschews that for the first time. Instead, it’s a simple painting of a faceless hooded figure, wreathed in mist. It’s more Gothic, stately, and sinister than before, and perfectly reflects that change in musical style.
It’s not a reinvention, though. New vocalist Adam Clemens’ vocals are on point. He brings the same witch rasp as Garnette did, supported by the same lightning black-thrash attack juxtaposed against the supreme melodicism of the lead guitars and solos, peppered with chromatic and bluesy runs. In short, it’s Skeletonwitch, and it rips. But it does way more than just rip. It’s the most expansive, dynamic, and layered record in the band’s catalog. Most of the tracks have more elaborate compositions than before, with more time given to letting them build and flow. That can make the record seem less accessible than previous outings at first blush, but repeated listens reveal highly detailed songs that are more than mere riff collections. They flow in and out of classic Skeletonwitch with moments of legato lyrical guitar leads, clean vocals, and slow doomy builds. The centerpiece of this is, undeniably, the title track. Starting with a slow clean intro, it weaves through eight minutes of new and old ‘Witch, ending with a beautiful natural guitar harmonic passage.
The only black mark on the album is the production. Like Serpents Unleashed, it was produced by Kurt Ballou. He's a heavy hitter in “loud metal” production, and it's serviceable, but only just. Ballou is known for more straightforward loud bands, and Skeletonwitch have elegantly exited that group on Devouring Radiant Light. The music is more nuanced than Skeletonwitch has ever been before, and it really deserved a producer like Colin Marston, who knows how to bring out both the dirt and the detail of a metal band. The album succeeds in spite of the production, not because of it.
And the album is a complete success, musically. It's simply the best record in Skeletonwitch's catalog. It's everything one could have hoped for from Skeletonwitch 2.0: ripping blackened thrash at heart, but brought to a new level with the kind of experimentation the band never attempted before.
