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Num Skull - Ritually Abused
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Num Skull - Ritually Abused
Num Skull - Ritually Abused
Released by: Relapse Records
Released on: September 16th, 2012.
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Made up of Skip McGullam on vocals, Eric Seiller and Tom Brander on guitar, Rob Charrier on bass and Jeff McGullam on drums, Num Skull's Ritually Abused album (recorded in Gurnee, Illinois) was originally released by Medusa Records in 1988 but has been out of print for decades. Relapse, who are definitely into doing awesome reissues of lost thrash/death metal stuff these days (and let's thank them for it) have brought the album back to life and in remastered format with a bonus track too. The album might be a quarter of a century old at this point but that doesn't matter, it's still as heavy and as fast and as pummeling as anything you could hope to hear. Age has been kind to it. Here's how it all plays out…
The End is, ironically, the start of this album and it lays the ground work for what is to come: spookiness and heaviness in equal doses. It's a sixteen minute quickie but it's weird and it segues perfectly into the four and a half minute title track that is next. This is pretty much a classic thrash track, it's got a heavy but obvious rhythm to it and you can definitely hear early Metallica and Slayer in this one in a big way while the vocals have got more of an otherworldly howl to them, kind of like what Chronos was doing in Venom at the time but spookier and with less goofiness. The scream just past the1:20 minute mark is on par with that iconic scream from Angel Of Death!
Death And Innocence starts off with some heavy guitar sort of sludging its way to the starting line before everything gets cranked up to 200mph and the vocals kick in over total speed domination from the drum and bass section. This one is just under five minutes in length and it has some death metal crossover aspects to it but definitely qualifies as classic style eighties thrash. The growly possessed sounding vocals make this one a creepy stand out. No Morals is a fast one, just over two minutes in length, and it's definitely full speed ahead style thrash in the vein of early D.R.I. but again with the demonic style vocals showing the Venom influence. Friday's Child is next and it ups the length close to the five minute mark, building with some heavy, crunchy intro guitar work over top of some simple but solid drumming before kicking down the door and stepping on the gas for more super fast, super tight thrash with some awesome breakdowns and tiny little (but super heavy) guitar solos in there too. The vocals don't even kick in until well after a minute into the track, and when they do, yeah, it's kind of terrifying in a really good way. And it's awesome, but not as awesome as Off With Your Head, no matter how fast it gets towards the end. Off With Your Head is probably the stand out here, and it just destroys three and a half minutes of your day with absolutely no remorse. It's fast, then it's not so fast and then it's fast again and just as you think you're starting to figure it out, it takes a left turn and then a right turn and then… fuck it. Just go with it. The solo towards the end will pull the skin off of your face and then slap you with it.
The Henchman has a solid instrumental intro before the howling vocals kick in literally, with a howl, and then into the first verse. This one sounds like Possessed quite a bit but without ripping them off. A minute and a half into the four and a half minute track and the foot comes off the brakes, but then it gets back into that mid-tempo grind again. It's an interesting track that keeps you guessing. Pirate's Night is a song about pirates and that's kind of goofy in this post 'Johnny Depp is a pirate age' but in 1988, pirate's were more interesting and edgy than they are since Disney basically took them over. This track is about treasure, death and piracy and it's gory and nasty and it mentions rape, just as a good pirate song should. Musically it channels a bit of Iron Maiden to get that sort of gallop going on that somehow conjures up imagery of centuries past and is therefore completely fitting of a song like this. It's definitely faster and with way less polish than even the early Maiden stuff was, however. This is actually an awesome track and a stand out on an album of killer material.
Four tracks left? Turn Of A Screw is a brutal four minute and one damn second thrashterpiece that again brings in elements of grindcore and death metal before those genres really took off on their own. There's a bit of a hardcore sound in here too, and it adds to the insanity of it all in a nice way. Kiss Me, Kill Me is more of the same, just super fast and at times surprisingly technical and obviously well rehearsed super fast playing with those demonic vocals over top. It's almost five minutes in length but it is absolutely unrelenting in its pace. Rigor Mortis would have closed out the original version of this album and at under three minutes it is on the shorter, thrashier side of things but it's got even more insane vocals than the other eleven tracks that come before it and it brings things to a close in fine style indeed. Except it doesn't, because Relapse have dug up a bonus track in the form of Murder By The Minister, a three minute and thirty-eight second song that tells the story of a murderous minister in a New England town and, yeah, it's evil thrashy goodness completely in keeping with the tracks that come before it.
There were a lot of bands doing thrash and doing it well around the same time that Num Skull were working on this album and a lot of those bands are amazing but very few, if any, of those bands capture the raw sincerity and honesty that Num Skull manage to on this record. The whole damn thing, remastered or not, sounds like it was recorded in someone's garage, it has that weird tone to it that you don't get with stuff done in super deluxe high tech studios, but it just adds to the grisly tone, the eerie vocals and the demonic beauty that is Ritually Abused. This has been very hard to find for the last twenty-six years. Now it isn't. Get it. If these guys had received the exposure that many of their contemporaries had they would have been as big as Slayer. That didn't happen, but this album lives again and there's no reason, if you're a fan of this type of music, not to jump in.
The complete track listing for Ritually Abused is as follows:
The End / Ritually Abused / Death And Innocence / No Morals / Friday's Child / Off With Your Head / The Henchman / Pirate's Night / Turn Of A Screw / Kiss Me, Kill Me / Rigor Mortis / Murder By The Minister (bonus track)
You can pick this up on CD, black vinyl or limited edition purple vinyl if that's your thing (they're only making 300 of those). There are other recordings from Num Skull out there, mostly late eighties era demo tapes but they did put out another full length in 1991 called Future - Our Terror. If Relapse were to reissue that material is well it would only be a good thing. Want to listen to Kiss Me, Kill Me? Do it!
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