Exclusive Track Premiere: Shed The Skin (Incantation, Ringworm) Snack On Your Trachea With “Blades of the Lightning Altar”

Often, death metal supergroups sound like rehashes of the albums that the band members grew up listening to — but maybe it’s just that Shed The Skin listened to all of the best albums. The four-piece, whose ranks include members of Incantation, Ringworm, Soulless, and Crucified Mortals (to name only a few), perform breakneck death metal that always maintains a thrash pace even as it rolls around in sonic extremity like a Labrador that’s just for a rancid corpse by the side of the road. With each of their full-length albums, the band has only gotten us more and more interested; now, with this year’s Thaumogenesis, the quartet are set to become a must-listen act in the modern death metal scene.

Says vocalist/guitarist Ash Thomas of the new record:

“After three albums, we wanted to explore new and different perspectives sonically and visually without losing the main focus that has always been to create high-quality, memorable, and crushing death metal.”

The band’s new single “Blades of the Lightning Altar” takes this approach, scrapes it into a shiv, and jams it in your eye. Speedy but complex, primal but refined, this is the kind of death metal song that makes you throw your beer and stomp immediately into a circle of elbow-swinging maniacs. What makes it especially awesome is that it’s not just a barrage of noise; Shed The Skin obviously don’t just want to be as heavy as possible, but also want their songs to be enjoyable and easy to get into, which is a noble endeavor for a band who sounds as much like making someone eat an ember as these guys do. All of which is to say, this shit rules, get into it.

Check out our exclusive premiere of “Blades of the Lightning Altar” below. Shed The Skin’s Thaumogensis drops 5/27 from Hells Headbangers, and is available for preorder.