My first attempt to look up OLD SKIN on YouTube yielded some pretty nasty shit. When I coupled it with “Wails of Ten Thousand” I got even more nasty shit, but of the “noise ridden sludge metal” variety. OLD SKIN—the extreme metal band out of Fort Collins, Colorado, not the dermatological condition—has two EPs and one full-length album to their credit. The LP, Wails of Ten Thousand, was released on February 21, 2025 via Cursed Monk Records. It is 28 minutes of unforgiving Sludge Metal so corrosive it will rot your turntable as well as your soul.

The cover of the album (by MartyrDoomillustrations IG) depicts a forlorn manor overrun with necrotic green sludge. Befitting. The house itself looks like a cross between the one in HPL’s “The Dunwich Horror” and the mansion from Poe’s “The Fall of the House of Usher” with the added touch of a statue of some demonic fey squatting in the front lawn. That last detail is probably the most disturbing detail of the entire scene. At any rate, totally f’d up imagery. I totally love it. Perfect pairing for the seven tracks found inside.

The album is a bit on the short side with only five proper tracks and two interludes. The interludes stack up to about two minutes total, but they do provide an uneasy reprieve from the otherwise relentless assault. Best tracks are the opener, “Cross Pusher,” with its groove-laden stoner vibe and subdued vocals, and the closing track, “Cauterizing Hammer,” which hits with the sonic equivalent of the title—a searing hot, blunt instrument. We’re talking sludge with the density of cold osmium.   

Wails of Ten Thousand is OLD SKIN’s third offering in as many years. I do like the “horror inspired sludge” approach. I mean, horror and metal have always gone hand in hand, so sludgy horror just makes sense. For returning fans, this is the most refined OLD SKIN has ever been both from the production angle as well as the songwriting angle, evolving from raw to visceral but still very much deeply embedded in the realm of brutality.