When a band releases an EP, video and live album before its debut, you already know the entities therein are not about to be bound by expectations, genre “constraints” of false authorities or even what the listener expects. Thus was born FUMES, spewing forth Skeletal Wings Threshold from the squalor and beauty of the streets of Mexico City.
Grating tremelo scathe and scree bleeds us from the opening moments of ‘Stellar Ascension Infernal’, the worship of the riff key, and a tight, vibrant mix giving each instrument its rightful place, and when the last 0:11 combusts, there’s no amount of restraint that will keep you safe on this chaosride. ‘Kamazotz’, from 2023’s VHS Sessions video is revisited, and who doesn’t love a song about a “death bat”? Know that there’s zero fucking around with this foursome, though; no leafing through the Popol Vuh in hopes of coming off as authentic or esoteric. Lesser Key Of Solomon, much? I’m looking at you, DeathSpell Omega. FUMES exudes its heritage and mythology as only one whose culture is so deeply ingrained with such that it could be none else.
‘Suppuration Tunnels’ heralds the return of the gutted swine guitars, so obnoxiously high-pitched, yet so invigorating in a style where sheep wear goats; hides but dumbly follow the trend of the moment. At just over 6 minutes, ‘Carrier Of Venenifyer’ the verse “Plucking hearts out / Quenchless thirst / To never return! / To ship towards beyond / Whirling into Death!” slips us past the cosmic gateway, and into a whirling maelstrom of the instrumental section a galloping rhythm falling into a near ‘Astronomy Domine’ psych-trance state, then ending in a DESTRUCTION-worthy riff, the understandable yet ravaged bellow of the vokills utterly suited to the material.
If I didn’t know any better – and I don’t, that’s for damn sure – I’d swear that the latter half of the debut is meant to be taken as a single piece, a trinity of subtle instrumentals (‘Passage I, II, and III’ – the latter ending the album) interwoven with ‘Hollow Teeth Of Darkness’ and ‘Plaguestorms’. The former slows the tempo at times from what’s come before, but scorches all the same, while ‘Plaguestorrms’ is more unhinged in execution, retaining a maliciously crafted sense of melody, as does much of this album.
Beholden to none, and for that reason alone demanding attention, Skeletal Wings Threshold is the iconoclastic shattering of expectations.
Review By: Lord Randall
FUMES
Skeletal Wings Threshold
Personal Records