I know there are tons of skullflower topic on internet, but why not one more. This morning I extended my arm forward, grabbed as much 7"s as I can fit in my hand, and start to put them on turntable. One after another, some giving few extra spins. And just basically by accident, a lot of them happened to be Skullflower 7"s.
Slaves / Satany my black ass, steve albini = jim steinman 7" on forced exposure is a bit let down. Despite being pretty old 7", it's somehow doesn't really get the drive or focus like other 7"s have. Well, I guess "drive" and "focus" are pretty relative terms. Thinking how sloppy and stagnant some of the material is. And how loosely the screech of feedback driven noise rock goes. Anyways, you hear the difference when something like Rift / Avalanche 7" hits the turntable. Lots of dense layering, lots of feedback, sloppy drum beat and charming distorted rubbish of electrified strings on top. Some delay effected yelling too. 1990. Stepping couple years forward and Evel Knievel / Teenage Lightning Diamond Bullet introduces nicer heavily reverbed drum sound, wahwah treated guitar noises, distant vocals, crunchy bass lines. B-side from different session, perhaps more in your face sound, but very much in same methods. Fast wahwah guitar noise on top, some nice movie samples kind of reminding me of glory days of Cosmonauts Hail Satan. Just perfect.
Rotten sun / Spook Rise 7", seems more sludgy works of 1990. Tempo is very relaxed, simple distorted bass lines and drum beat and nice effect treated guitar wandering on top of everything, with distorted vocals. 7 minute song goes with same style/tempo like drug crazed jam, with vocals delay being manipulated into psychedelic effects. Track two goes back in 1988. Clearer sound, dense and heavy. Very nice.
WhiteFang #2 / Glassy Essence on freek is already 1994 release, and first release ever of Freek Records in UK. Noisier, more chaotic lo-fi sound than older stuff. B-side goes on full on brutal noise walls create with instruments. It's like Slugbait or Hijokaidan or whatever these noisers who abuse guitar, bass, drums, to create massive wall of noise. Line-up includes Philip Best, Bower, Dennison, Smith..
Release recorded same month as above mentioned 7" came out is Choady Foster / Spent Force. Well, 6th in line of skullflower 7"s, listened straight away, one can say it might not be as noisy as Glasy Essence. It may not reach the superiority of Avalanche or Evel Knievel, but it's a must have 7" for those who like this era of Skullflower.
I really liked when they have those early albums. LP's on UK labels and the phenomenal CD on RRRecords. I like all the 7"s. Never regretted buying any of them. But the later works.......... when they started to... ehm.. suck? There are pretty decent later discs as well, but hardly matching the superiority of the old works. But some are also plain horrible.
The sound of these 7"s is part of the charm. They have none of the modern qualities of "tough guy music". No "heaviness", no "ultra bass", no "in your face loudness"... It's just sloppy, screechy, spontaneous, raw... Was these 7"s ever compiled on CD? Kind of would hope that it would bring the goodies to ears of new crowd in affordable format, but that basically means one misses the great presentation which is equally clumsy, equally directionless and surprising. You get 7" and it might have whatever in artwork. And that brings the good wibe of spontaneous & personal crafmanship.
