Nightfly USA doom/stoner metal band Beastmaker impressed me with last years Lusus Naturae. Their Black Sabbath infused retro metal was on heavy rotation in my house quite a while. Sure, it wasn’t exactly groundbreaking but what matters the most with this sort of stuff is how good the riffs are right? There it scored pretty highly with me.

Inside The Skull is a quick follow up by today’s standards. History is littered with rushed second albums that have fallen flat in an attempt to capitalize on the any momentum built up by the first. Well fortunately that’s not the case with Beastmaker as they’ve released an album at least as good as Lusus Naturae, quite possibly better. There’s not much in the way of musical growth, the band adopting the if it ain’t broke don’t fix it ethos, but the new songs display more confidence and maturity. The sound is brighter but the riffs are still as crushing as ever but there’s still room for some melody. Pick of the bunch is opener Evil One, Heaven To Hell, Now Howls The Beast and Inside The Skull simply for having the best riffs but to be honest there’s very little to choose between most of the album. Give Me A Sign is more dynamic with the heavier chorus riffs being preceded by the cleaner guitar tones of the verse adding some welcome colour. Trevor William Church’s mournful Ozzy style vocals are perfect for this sort of stuff and he’s also responsible for the solid guitar work. Equally solid is the rhythm section of Andres Alejandro Saldate IV and John Michael Tucker who largely keep things simple but add enough variation with syncopated rhythms to keep things interesting.

There are loads of bands out there doing this sort of stuff but Beastmaker are one of the better examples. If you enjoy the likes of Sabbath, Cathedral and Pentagram these guys are for you.

Kev Rowland

Formed in California in 2014, this is the second full-length album from the doom/stoner trio. Now, I like doom as much as the next metalhead, and have lots of stoner in my collection, but I can’t get out of my head that this is NWOBHM-tinged doom as opposed to the real thing. Now, back in 1979 I was sweet sixteen, and fell into the genre wholeheartedly but even in the early days it was easy to see what bands were going to make it, what bands might make it, and what bands were probably just going to release one album or single and then vanish, and Beastmaker fall into the last category. They are currently touring with Zakk Sabbath, and I can imagine that they would be a great warm-up band, but never anything more than that.

This is an okay album, but there isn’t enough in the way of good songs for me to want to keep returning to it, and there is a feeling that they have a lot to do if they ever want to break out of the second division.