Skeleton of God

From the colorful insert, splendidly illustrated by frontman Jeff Kahn, to the lyrics, which fall eloquently between proverb and poetry, Skeleton of God's latest effort — the followup to Urine Garden, its masterful mid-'90s debut EP — is clearly not just another mindless foray into extreme metal. While the reconvened trio supplies ample intensity, the relentless, pulverizing fretwork and rapid-fire kitwork that typify this style of metal are infused with brooding passages of slow-burning, molasses-thick psychedelia — inspired, says the band, by a mind-altering ingestion of a substance known as Salvia divinorum. For an act that is said to have inspired members of Cephalic Carnage and whose own members name artists such as Salvador Dalí, Sun Ra and Syd Barrett as sources of inspiration, Skeleton of God is in a realm all its own.