NUM SKULL - Ritually Abused

October 24, 2014, 9 years ago

Relapse Records

Greg Pratt

Rating: 6.5

review heavy metal num skull

NUM SKULL - Ritually Abused

Nice move by Relapse here, digging up and reissuing this totally forgotten 1988 album by the totally forgotten Num Skull, who made one hell of a mistake with that band name (come on... seriously?) but otherwise thrashed hard into the night, taking the music to almost blast-beat-driven places at times during tunes like "The Henchman," just laying down thrash of the German variety, or the more extreme American proto-death-metal strain of heavy speed/thrash, like no one's business. Occasionally, like on a tune like "Pirate's Night," you get singer Skip McGullam going from raging thrash lunatic to local bar-band vocalist in local bar band wailing the falsetto trad metal vox while opening for Savatage just like that, which totally doesn't work. Oddly, those high vox only pop up rarely here, much of the album just thrashing like a maniac, tunes like the aforementioned "Pirate's Night" acting like the awesome and slightly unhinged second cousin of Sacrifice's "Re-Animation." This is one fun and hysterical heavy thrash album, one that suffers from a serious lack of personality like many of the second-tier thrash bands of the era did, but one that encapsulates a very specific time and sound with tons of passion and energy. Man, forgotten as soon as it's over, but a joy to spin nonetheless.



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