Scythelord is the brainchild of a man named Joel. He is better known as the funny Swedish man from Vinesauce. This band released their first full-length, Toxic Minds, near the end of 2016. I was surprised upon learning that he had his own serious metal band. I was even more surprised by how legitimately good it was. They sounded like a more extreme version of Morbid Saint. The band fell silent for a while because Joel wanted to focus on fooling around with shareware. Then, in 2021, they released another full-length called Earth Boiling Dystopia, a creation whose nature is quite unlike the album which came before it.
Toxic Minds had a bit of a raw and rough quality, which is common for first releases from bands. Earth Boiling Dystopia, on the other hand, is much more refined. First of all, the production is cleaner. It doesn’t sound as gritty, but more details can be heard. Secondly, the music focuses less on outright aggression and more on structured songwriting. They have fused progressive metal elements on top of their death-thrash base.
The drums play a large number of thrashing d-beats that occasionally transform into rampaging blast beats. Sometimes the beats get slower and simpler to build anticipation for the fast-paced parts to follow. Extra emphasis has been placed on the bass. Their loud rattling riffs give the music an extra bit of dissonance and depth. Their best performance can be found on “Comedy In Blood”, where they take center stage and play riffs that are both elaborate and groovy.
The vocals are done by Joel Kermitsson himself. He’s the best part of the album. He performs hoarse growls and screams that sound like a maniacal blend of thrash metal, death metal, and black metal. The delivery of said vocals is much stronger than it was years ago. He also surprised me by performing clean vocals on the last two tracks. Joining him on guitars is a man named Frank. Their performance is incredibly diverse, ranging from simple thrashing chord progressions to swerving arpeggios. Sometimes they play more discordant riffs such as those on “Comedy In Blood”, and on “Just A Memory” they play simple punkish riffs. All of the riffs have a subtle sense of melody, which becomes even more pronounced in the many solos. These can sometimes be aggressive, but they usually have a sense of grace and wonder, especially those near the end of the album.
Mr. Joel Vinesauce is mainly known as a goofball, but he has proven himself to be a serious musician in the past few years. He and Frank are crafting metal that has modern vigor and pays homage to all the bands that laid the groundwork for death metal. It will be interesting to see how his craft will evolve. Although, from the looks of things, he’s much more interested in shareware shenanigans. I don’t have a problem with that, of course.