Rival Skulls – Hell Ouverture – Review

rivalskulls200Rival Skulls

Hell Ouverture (Blood and Guts)
By Ewan Wadharmi

And they’re not Nordic? The sort of American music usually done best by Scandal-navians with a deep understanding of our culture that we can’t see for the trees, which has now bled over into Italy. Don’t think you’ll be seeing these spiacevole essere that populate this netherworld will have an audience with the Pontiff anytime soon. Rival Skulls trade off between Misfits demonizing “Vampyrism Theory” and AFI hardcore “Luciferian Path” with a humorless but pretty damn cool delivery. There’re a few forgivable problems with timing that can be chalked up to inexperience. But the gist of it is here. Individually, the musicians are doing it right, they just need to get it together. “Alone” is a truly gorgeously dark Type O ballad whispered seductively. There may be subtle tributes to The Cult a nd The Swans slipped in occasionally. The Skullery dudes do a fine job of stitching together metal, punk, and Gothic into a familiar but still frightening and ungodly monster.
(www.bloodandgutsrecords.com)