UMUR
"Swollen Heaps" is the second demo recording by US, New York based death metal act Skinless. The demo was independently released in October 1995. Skinless formed in 1992 under the Gorebag monicker but soon after changed their name to the current one. The band released their first demo in 1994 and shortly after the release of the demo original vocalist Mike Levy left. Instead a rather strange constellation happened. Drummer Ryan Wade performs vocals on three out of five tracks on "Swollen Heaps" and plays drums on the remaining two, while new vocalist Sherwood Webber peforms vocals on the two tracks where Wade doesn´t perform, but also plays drums on the three tracks where Wade doesn´t. Bassist Ted Monsour has left and has been replaced by Adam Lewis. So only the role of guitarist Noah Carpenter hasn´t changed since the first demo.
Stylistically Skinless still play a brutal and crushingly heavy death metal style, which is predominantly mid-paced and groove laden. It´s not so much Obituary, Jungle Rot, and Six Feet Under I´m thinking of when listening to "Swollen Heaps" though (which I do when listening to the first demo), but instead Suffocation and other early slam death originators. The brutality and technical playing have been taken a notch up, and "Swollen Heaps" is overall quite the impressive death metal demo. Filled to the brim with heavy brutal grooves and riffs, unintelligible brutal growling, and high level musicianship, this is a quality release. The songwriting is effective and relatively memorable and the sound production is in the better end of death metal demo sound recordings. This could just as well have been released as an EP on a label. Both "Crispy Kids" and "Cuntaminated" from this demo were re-recorded and included on Skinless debut full-length studio album "Progression Towards Evil" (released in March 1998). A 3 - 3.5 star (65%) rating is warranted.
