There are ups and downs to being on a big time Tech-Death kick. Sure, the music is aggressive, challenging, and at times delightfully outrageous, but after a while, all the 270 BPM alternate-picked riffs and finger-tapped arpeggios can start to blend together. You can't remember which riffs went to what song, and you're tired of albums full of pretentious track names like "Insufferable Amenities Of An Indolent Populace" (which I just made up, if you couldn't tell.) that you don't even understand.  I've been there, more than once. Thankfully, we have bands like SoCal's SKINFATHER, who play some seriously heavy, old school-style Death Metal with a modern sensibility, to break the monotony. The five-piece formed in 2011, releasing two EPs before dropping their full-length debut "None Will Mourn" earlier this year.

The band takes their name from a track by Swedish Metal heavyweights DISMEMBER, and musically, there are a lot of favorable similarities, such as the buzzsaw guitars, battering drums and throat-shredding vocals. Stephen McCall's tortured howls have a slightly Hardcore feel to them, which gives his delivery a sort of unhinged, frantic urgency. Guitarists Scott Fahey and Anthonie Gonzalez take something of a less-is-more approach with their creative yet straightforward riffs. "Ordeal By Fire" kicks off the album with riff after pummeling riff, alternating speeds seamlessly while keeping things brutal all the way through. The slower, downright bruising "Drown In Black" builds on this with even more memorable, earth-shaking riffs.

The tempo stays consistently upbeat throughout the album, the band rarely straying from their fast-but-not-too-fast approach save for a short burst of blastbeats in "Born Of Despair." The slow-burning "Hellish Grave" is great for its body-dragging pace and insidious guitars. "Dead Still" is another strong track with a couple of riffs, particularly the one around the 0:55 mark, that remind me a bit of mid-period CARCASS (think 'Necroticism'-era), while "Calloused" sounds every bit as raw and biting as its name might imply.

While there is a lot to like about "None Will Mourn," it is not an album without flaws. The band's sound is still somewhat derivative, and while the songs are all super heavy and well played, they tend to blend together due to the album's lack of diversity from track-to-track. Still, it's a solid album overall, and lovers of heavy music would do well to give this slab of pure, hellish Death Metal a listen or two (or four).