Today, enigmatic black metallers Skare stream the entirety of their highly anticipated debut album, Skare, at the Black Metal Promotion YouTube channel. Set for international release on September 12th via Amor Fati Productions on vinyl LP format – the CD version will be released by Dark Adversary Productions – hear Skare‘s self-titled debut album in its entirety exclusively HERE.
A mysterious entity perhaps hailing from the ever-fertile Australian black metal underground, Skare is both traditionalism and idiosyncrasy defined. The band’s sound is undoubtedly rooted in the ancient tropes of ’90s black metal classicism – magick, mysticism, medieval madness – and across the epic expanses of Skare does the band lead the listener on a winding, cobwebbed path of frostbitten fury and majestic melancholy. Peel away those cobwebs and one will find unselfconscious twists of the knife that draw in funer(e)al doom and organ-led dementia, impossibly acrobatic riffing and even-more-impossibly engaging melodicism, and most crucially songwriting that’s simultaneously direct and distant. Which is to say nothing of the production and tones of the album, which evade the usual cliches of “raw” and harken more to an earthy, almost rock ‘n’ roll vintage. Truly, Skare in general and Skare in particular are mystery made flesh, and the 35 minutes contained herein unfold new vistas of the imagination.
Whether your taste runs from the sanguineous surge of old Obtained Enslavement or the swords-drawn swoosh of Perished or especially the recent-years revival of vampiric black metal, Skare‘s debut album is a vital sign of undead life.
The full vital sign can be found exclusively HERE, courtesy of the Black Metal Promotion YouTube channel. Cover and tracklisting are as follows:
Tracklisting for Skare’s Skare
1. The Lonesome Ibex [4:39]
2. A Sordid Ceremony [7:38]
3. Beyond The Church Spires [10:10]
4. The Threshold Into Death [6:44]
5. Into Icy Pewter Sky [5:41]