By Greg Pratt

As the thrash resurgence continues (although anyone else hear those wheels grinding to a bit of a halt?), one band is lurking in the corner, not saying much but shredding hard, there but operating in a whole different realm altogether, one of raw production, general ugliness and an adherence to all things metal no matter what sub-genre. That band is Ohio's SKELETONWITCH, who are about to unleash album number three (number two for Prosthetic Records), a celebration of all things horned entitled Breathing The Fire.

But chatting with guitarist Scott Hedrick, we find out that the guys are getting up to the most un-metal of things, despite the fact that they're on a monster of a metal tour, out there with CHILDREN OF BODOM and THE BLACK DAHLIA MURDER.

"The tour has been killer so far," he says. "At least what I remember of it (laughs). Right now we're hanging out in Edmonton. We just sound-checked and are waiting for doors to open. We're playing this venue that's attached to the West Edmonton Mall. The mall's kind of fucking crazy. There's an amusement park, water park, and, of course, a shitload of stores. Unfortunately, there's not enough time to check it out. Nate [Garnett, guitarist] and I have been threatening to go to an indoor water park for about six years now," he laughs. "We always pass them on the highway and want to stop."

Dude, that would involve getting clean, an activity which progenitors of metal this dirty should not be involved in. And metal it is, not so much concerned with being thrash, death, black, speed, trad, NWOBHM although elements of all those creep in the mix, Hedrick says the band just considers themselves "heavy."

"One of my favourite MOTÖRHEAD interviews is from an old Hard & Heavy VHS tape," he says. "Philthy Animal Taylor is talking about metal and the Motörhead sound, I don't know, thing metal, trashcan metal, what's-it metal...' Then Lemmy chimes in, 'I always thought we were a rock 'n' roll band, mate!' I've always considered us a metal band without thinking too much about genres."

Which is precisely what the band does on the new disc, plowing forth ever so strong, a Jack Endino production managing to make sense of the sounds of many micro-genres colliding. Actually, it not just makes sense of it all, it makes it cohesive, although the guys certainly sound more comfortable and focused with their particular melding of genres on this ass-kicker of an album.

"Absolutely," says Hedrick. "I think the song-writing is more cohesive-credit Nate for that-and we have a better idea of what Skeletonwitch sounds like. It's definitely the meanest and most epic Skeletonwitch record yet."

And, one more final pressing matter: Wikipedia says these dudes are part of the thrash revival; I say they're not. Who wins?

"You win," says an obviously happy Hedrick, "and we win for you saying that (laughs). There are some cool bands that are part of the thrash revival but I don't think we fall into that category. I think that the fundamental structures of our songs disqualify us. There are a lot of black/death/Viking/NWOBHM or whatever the fuck you want to call them elements in the Skeletonwitch sound and writing us off as just another thrash revival band is lazy journalism. If someone is going to make that claim then the least they can do is back it up by dissecting our songs and providing examples."