UMUR
"Sulphur Skies" is the debut full-length studio album by multi-national death metal act Johansson & Speckmann. The album was released through Vic Records in June 2013. Johansson & Speckmann is a project act consisting of Rogga Johansson (guitar, bass), Paul Speckmann (vocals) and Brynjar Helgetun (drums). Especially the two former mentioned are quite prolific names on the scene. Rogga Johansson for his work with among others Demiurg, Paganizer, Ribspreader, The Grotesquery and Bone Gnawer and Paul Speckmann for his work with Death Strike, Abomination and especially Master.
So these guys are quite the seasoned bunch, and while there´s little technically challenging being played on "Sulphur Skies", it´s still obvious they know what they do. Stylistically the music on "Sulphur Skies" is old school death metal. Mostly Swedish styled with a slight D-Beat punk influence, but there are nods toward the late eighties/early nineties US scene too. So this basically sounds exactly how I imagined it would. Something along the lines of early Entombed meets Master. Especially the guitar sound is typical Swedish. Downtuned, buzzing and crunchy. The sound production is overall decent, but the drums could have prospered from a more organic sound. There are times when I wonder if the drums are programmed.
Featuring 12 tracks distributed over a 34:53 minutes long playing time "Sulphur Skies" is a relatively short and "to the point" type of album, which is only good in this case, because the songwriting isn´t particularly interesting or memorable, although "Sulphur Skies" is enjoyable enough while it plays. So while the collaboration between Johansson and Speckmann might sound great on paper, in reality it´s a pretty mediocre affair. Not bad, but not really great either and a 3 star (60%) rating is warranted.